


Girl All the Bad Guys Want

by nessismore



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action, Crack, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:36:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessismore/pseuds/nessismore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first few times it happens, she thinks it's a coincidence. But after the fourth time she lands in the hospital, she's going to have to come to terms with the fact that for reasons unbeknownst to her, someone is trying to kidnap her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the avengerkink prompt:
> 
> Out of nowhere, all the Big Bads (and maybe a few little bads, too?) on the list start gunning for, of all people, Darcy.
> 
> Various and sundry attempts are made to kidnap/abduct/destroy/turn her to the dark side, and the worst part of it is, she has no idea why.
> 
> \----
> 
> I'm not at all knowledgeable about comic-verse villains, so if you're here for that, this is probably not the fic for you. Thanks to Merideath for talking the first part of this through with me!

The first time it happens, she thinks it’s a coincidence. The city’s being attacked, for crying out loud, and there’s not much to do except try to keep her head down and get the hell out of there. She’s lived through the destruction of a small town and the decimation of a major city, so she’s pretty sure she’s got a better handle on how to handle these situations than most of the other people running screaming down the street. The police are directing people to a makeshift shelter, and she’s almost there when she notices a teenage boy trying to take on one of those weird, giant alien bug things by himself.

The kid’s going to get himself killed. She looks longingly towards shelter then back at the kid, and she sighs. She changes direction.

“Hey kid, run!” she shouts, but the kid doesn’t listen to her and he’s seriously about to get cut in half by a pair of pincers so she knocks him out of the way. And off comes a large chunk of her hair, damn it. Which, she guesses, is preferable to losing a large chunk of her head. But she’s seriously pissed at this kid as she scrambles to her feet and jerks the kid along behind her, pushing him towards the shelter.

A police officer is rushing the kid through the entrance when she feels pressure around her waist and her feet are off the ground so quickly she thinks she’s going to be sick. The officer is shouting, pointing his gun everywhere at once, and oh God, he’ll probably end up shooting her himself if this thing doesn’t squeeze her to death. She’s screaming, because who wouldn’t? And she’s trying to pry the stupid pincers open but all she’s getting for her trouble is bloody hands. It hurts, but not as much as knowing that she’s going to fucking _die_ and dear God, that stupid kid is hanging around in the shelter’s entrance. If he gets himself killed after she put herself in this situation for him, she’s going to come back and haunt his ghost. Or something.

“Get back,” she’s shouting, both at the officer and the kid, because holy _fuck,_ there are more of those things and they are all converging on her and the buggy alien that’s got her in its clutches. “Get back!” And she’s writhing, kicking, and tugging at the pincers, her sticky hands slipping on the smooth exoskeleton.

The officer looks at her with sad eyes and says, “I’m sorry.” He pushes the boy inside and gives her one last desperate look, like he wants to rush after her. She shakes her head at him, and he disappears behind a makeshift barricade. The thing starts to move and she’s crying now, trying to remember the prayers she was supposed to have learned in Catholic school and wishing she’d answered the phone when her mother called yesterday.

And then there’s a blur of red, white, and blue soaring through the air, and the pressure around her waist is gone. As she falls to the ground, she has enough time to notice the red, white, and blue has been joined by a streak of gold and red and a giant slash of green.

Then there’s a sharp pain shooting through her skull, and everything goes dark.

—

She’s in the hospital for a week after that incident. The kid she’d saved visits her in the hospital, and she feels very grown up as she delivers a “Don’t be a hero” speech. She’s thankful that he doesn’t point out the hypocrisy in that speech coming from the woman lying in a hospital bed because she’d tried—and succeeded, thank you very much—to save his sorry ass. 

Her first stop after she gets out and the bandage comes off is a hairdresser, and her raggedy, alien-bug induced cut turns into a swingy bob and that at least turns this situation into something of a win when all of her co-workers gush over it. 

She’s surprised to realize that she’s missed being at work, although her mom doesn’t really consider being a social media specialist a job. She’s getting paid for it so Darcy isn’t going to complain. This isn’t what she’s going to do for the rest of her life. She hopes. She doesn’t really mind all the jokes that she spends all day tweeting, because that’s kind of what she does, but she does it to raise the online presence of her nonprofit and so she feels like she’s making some kind of difference.

Her hands are still sore and bandaged, her waist is still bruised and her head is still kind of fuzzy, so she does most of her work standing barefoot at her desk, tentatively using her fingers to work the mouse and using voice-to-text software for e-mails and status updates.  It’s her second day back at work, and she’s kind of losing her mind with all of the concerned looks being thrown her way so she decides to take an early lunch. 

She’s just stepping out of the building when two men grab her and drag her into an empty alleyway before she can gather up enough breath to scream. She yanks her arm away from one and thrusts a hand into her purse to get at her taser. She tries to push away the pain as she forces her fingers to curl around the barrel. Gritting her teeth, she manages to pull the trigger and hits one of them in the chest. Her satisfaction is short lived when as that man falls, two more appear. Her taser is knocked out of her hands. 

She opens her mouth and screams for all she’s worth before one of the goons—one of the new ones in those cultish green uniforms the cornea-searing yellow “H” across the front—covers her mouth. She bites him, and tries to wrench herself free, trying like hell not to panic. She manages to blindly kick one of them in the balls, and she bangs her head against the one the one who still has a firm hold on her arm and manages herself.

Her head spins and her whole body throbs as she tries to stumble away. But there’s still the other one. She falls to her knees and tries to crawl forward. The man grabs her ankle and she doesn’t have the strength to fight him off anymore. He starts pulling her towards him, and all Darcy can think is that she’s glad that she wore pants today because if she’s going to die, at least this fucker isn’t getting an upskirt shot.

“Hey!” She thinks she imagined the shout, but when she looks up there’s a man standing there. And she doesn’t exactly think, _I’m saved_ , because she can hear the others getting to their feet and no matter how big the guy looks, two or three burly goons against one are not good odds. But he can get help.

He doesn’t, though. He rushes headlong into the alley, picks up a trashcan lid and throws it like a frisbee, knocking back one of the men who was getting up. 

“Down,” her rescuer shouts, and she ducks, covering her head with her arms. The man holding her ankle suddenly lets go, and she can hear the sounds of a fight going down. Maybe she can crawl away while they’re occupied, but she can’t abandon her rescuer like that. She struggles to her feet, looking for something, anything that might help in a fight, but when she looks up, the fight is over. All four men are unconscious. Her white knight is on his cell phone and she thinks she hears the words “clean up” but the world is spinning so hard she’s not quite sure. _Please don’t hurl,_ she thinks to herself as the man rushes over to her. He strips off his jacket and places it around her shoulders, and she looks down, surprised to see that her shirt has pretty much been ripped straight down the middle.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” She looks up, trying to focus on his face, but she’s feeling all wobbly. She pitches forward and he catches her. “Ma’am?”

“I had ‘em on the ropes,” she murmurs, and oh God, she’s going to faint. Her last thought before everything goes black is that at least it isn’t hurling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huuuuuge thanks to katertots, merideath, and metonymy for things like handholding, cheerleading, idea-bouncing, and looking over this chapter for me!
> 
> And thanks to all of you for reading and commenting and leaving kudos. The response was overwhelming but really gratifying! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Her white knight is sitting beside her hospital bed when she wakes up.  He’s all earnest and adorable when he notices she’s opened her eyes and asks, “Can I get you anything?” 

“Morphine drip,” she croaks out, because holy crap she hurts _everywhere_.  He laughs softly and calls a nurse.  There’s no morphine, but she does get some different pleasant pain killers and she gets to drift off to sleep.

He’s still there, dozing off in the chair by her bed, when she wakes up the second time.  It makes her feel giddy.  She blames the painkillers.  She takes this opportunity to examine her rescuer.  He’s an Adonis, prettier than she remembers Thor being, even if he’s not quite as big.  He’s got that all-American look that makes her think of apple pie and ice cream, yes ma’ams and no sirs, and he dresses like all of those nice, straight-laced boys in high school who weren’t jocks _or_ nerds—the ones who are just _good_ and it makes you feel small in comparison.

 _Some armor,_ she thinks, and it is only when he opens his eyes and looks at her that she realizes she’s said it out loud.  He calls in a nurse, and Darcy is prodded and poked, then prodded some more while he hovers around.  When the nurse leaves, he introduces himself.

“I’m Steve,” he says and she smiles up at him.  Or she tries to. Her everything hurts, and she doesn’t think she’s quite managed to move her face.

“Darcy.”  Her voice is a feeble little thread of sound and she hates it.

“I know.”  He pauses, like he’s thinking about what he’s just said.  “I ah—I heard the nurses say it.  Do you need some water?”

She nods.  He helps her sits up, and carefully holds the cup while she sips.  “Thanks,” she repeats, and this time her voice sounds stronger.

He looks adorably bashful now, and says, “Anybody would have done it.”

“Don’t know if _anybody_ would have.”  She casts a surreptitious glance at his muscles.  “And I don’t know if anybody else _could_ have.”

“I’m just glad that you’re okay.  I—”  He breaks off when his phone beeps, and his face falls when he sees whatever message is on the screen.  “I have to go.  I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m good.  Thanks again.  For everything.”  The look he gives her feels like it shoots straight through to her soul, and she’s suddenly conscious of the fact that she has no idea how long she’s been in the hospital and no clue what she must look like right now.  She stresses about it for a second, then shrugs it off.  It hurts too much to even move her arms, so how she looks should really be last on her list of priorities.  And he’s on his way out anyway.

He moves to go, then pauses in the doorway.  “I…can I call you sometime?  To check up on you?”

She smiles weakly.  “I’d like that.”

He beams, and that alone does wonders in making her feel better.  At least on the inside.  The outside still hurts like a bitch.  “Great.  I’ll talk to you soon.”

He’s almost out the door when she calls out, “Steve?  Do you need my number.”

His cheeks are tinged with pink as he hurries back, pulling out his phone again.  “Oh.  Right.  Thanks.”  She tells him her number, and he repeats it back to make sure he’s got it right.  Then he smiles at her, squeezes her hand, and tells her he’ll talk to her soon.

Darcy feels ridiculously cheerful.  Sure, she’s in the hospital again, but Steve asking for her number is definitely a high point of her time in New York.

—

She gets out of the hospital the next day and her boss lets her work from home.  He was going to give her the day off, but Darcy felt guilty and insisted.  She spends the rest of the morning examining other organizations’ social media sites and trying to pick up things she can use.

Steve calls towards the end of her self-imposed work day to see how she’s doing.  They end up talking for an hour about the pitfalls of living in New York.  The conversation turns into an agreement to meet for coffee the next day, which then morphs into a trip to a nearby theater that shows classic films, because Darcy mentions that she hasn’t seen _Casablanca_ , and Steve apparently considers it criminal.  She never would have pegged Steve as a romantic, but she’s pretty sure she hears him sigh when Ilsa says, “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’”  She looks at him and his eyes are glued to the screen, and he’s almost at the edge of his seat, even though he says he’s seen this movie a dozen times.  It’s ridiculous how adorable she finds that.

She tries really hard not to think of this as a date because she _just_ met him, but when his fingers brush against hers on the armrest they’re sharing she feels all of sixteen again.  He walks her back up to her apartment and he doesn’t kiss her goodnight, which she’s okay with because she might now know about his intense dislike for the Yankees, his continued disbelief that the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, and his affinity for food of any kind (he ate, like, five scones at the coffee shop—and this is after he told her he’d just had dinner), they are still practically strangers.  But she does feel a thrill of pleasure when Steve asks if he can see her again sometime soon.

She says yes.

—

She goes back to work and laughs when she sees that her co-workers have decorated her room with good luck charms, “because,” an office friend says, “you have to be the unluckiest woman in New York.”  Other than interviews with the police over this most recent incident, the next days are blissfully uneventful.

She facebooks and tweets, she researches and comes up with contests for followers. She fires off occasional texts to Steve, who often responds by calling later because he says he isn’t quite comfortable typing on his phone.  Sometimes she gets the feeling that someone is watching her, so she is more careful and carries an extra taser, and she tries not to take the same route home every day. All in all, though, life is good.

She hurries home from work because she’s having dinner with Steve—she’s still hesitant to call it a date, even though she’s gone out and bought a new dress.  He wants to pick her up at her apartment.  She decides to meet him there.

She steps out and immediately gets that prickly feeling of eyes on the back of her neck, and part of her wishes she’d let Steve come for her.  She picks up the phone and calls him. He offers to come get her, but she just asks him to stay on the phone with her until she gets to the restaurant, then proceeds to talk his ear off about her day.

“And now I’m not going to have a thing to talk about over dinner,” she says sheepishly as she walks up to the Italian restaurant that Steve picked out.  

“Somehow I doubt that,” he says, his voice warm in her ear.

“Are you trying to tell me I talk too much?”

“Not too much. Just a lot.”  His voice did not come in over the phone.  She lets out a distressed “eep!” as she turns and sees him standing behind her, grinning widely.

She hangs up and sticks her phone back in her pocket, then swats him on the arm.  “You’re built like a rock,” she complains as she pulls her hand away. Thank God her hands have healed, because that would have hurt like a bitch.  “Do you lift weights in your sleep?”

He takes the hand that she’s shaking out and bends to touch his lips to her fingers.  “Sorry,” he says looking into her eyes and she swears everything else just stops. They stare at each other for a moment.  Until a man jostles Steve and the spell is broken.

Darcy laughs nervously and pulls her hand away. “Well, that’s enough of that. For now.”

A slow smile crosses Steve’s face.  “For now,” he repeats, and Darcy’s heart beats a little faster.  She’s glad she’s got her hand back because she’s pretty sure it’s damp with sweat now.

The hostess seats them in a back corner booth, and it all feels very intimate.  Darcy shivers.  She shakes her head when Steve offers her his coat.

“I can’t believe I haven’t told you that you look swell tonight,” Steve says with a shy smile and Darcy feels the corners of her own lips turn up.  

“You look pretty spiffy yourself.”  And he does.  It’s just a sports coat, button-down, and slacks, but damn, does he make it look amazing.

He’s right about her not running out of things to talk about during dinner.  There’s something about him that encourages her to share.  Maybe it’s because he looks genuinely interested, or the way he doesn’t try to dominate the conversation by impressing her with stories about how awesome he is.  Either way, she finds herself talking about everything under the sun—her family, her job, what she ate for breakfast that morning—and his eyes have yet to glaze over.

“So you spend a lot of your workday on the Internet?” he asks her when she gets done telling him about an upcoming twitter contest she’s organizing.

Darcy shrugs.  “Basically.”  She waits for the judgment, because it always comes when she talks about what she does, no matter how hard she tries to explain to them that, in her own way, she’s making a difference.

But Steve just smiles and says, “Neat.  It sounds like you really like what you’re doing.”

“I really do.  It’s good for now.  I just don’t know what comes next, you know?  Because I like it now but I don’t want to find myself turning forty and I’m still doing this.”  Darcy sighs, then shakes her head and smiles brightly.  “But enough about me. I swear this isn’t some awkward segue into ‘What kind of car do you drive?’ territory, but what do you do for a living?”

Steve hesitates, and she thinks maybe he isn’t going to answer, or maybe he’s going to tell her that he’s in the circus, or he’s a professional sandcastle engineer or something else completely absurd.  But when he finally answers, it’s something totally benign. “I’m in security.”

Darcy tilts her head and grins. “So when you say you’re in security, is it like in romance novels where you really work for some mercenary group made up of former hotshot men and you go on missions where you save the world _and_ get the girl?

Steve’s turning an odd color and he takes a sip of his water before saying, “Uh…no?  Just security.”

“Darn,” she says, snapping her fingers in mock disappointment, “I’ve always wanted to date a former soldier.”

He lets out a strangled sound, and she laughs.  It’s sweet, really, that such a handsome dude is a little shy.  “It’s a joke.  But security, huh?  Would that explain how you totally kicked ass and saved my bacon the other day?”

“Yeah.  Kinda.”  He asks her if the police have found anything, and this is not a conversation she wants to have right now when she’s still more shaken than she’d like to admit from those two incidents so close together, although she hasn’t told Steve about her run-in with the alien bug.  But she figures he deserves to know because without his help she wouldn’t even be here.  In multiple senses.  So she tells him about the police’s speculation about cults “because,” she says, “no one would wear those shades of green or yellow otherwise” and possibly mistaken identity, because her own past (Puente Antiguo aside) is ridiculously boring.

“Not a skeleton in my closet,” she says with a shrug.  “All of my sins are out there in the open, and none of them are worth a kidnapping attempt.”  Well, there’s the NDA-enforced skeleton still tucked firmly behind the closet door. She thinks of Agent iPod-Stealer and S.H.I.E.L.D, of New Mexico and Thor, but she didn’t mention any of that to the police and she’s not mentioning it to Steve now, because she doesn’t want Agent to come shooting out of the sky.  And he could do it.  Anyway, if S.H.I.E.L.D. wants her, they’ll send dudes in suits and not costumes.  Besides, she doesn’t even really _know_ anything, except that aliens exist, but who _doesn’t_ know that by now?

“Anyway, _they_ think it’s a case of wrong place, wrong time.  They’re probably right. It’s been all gravy since then, though.”

“You’ll be careful though, right?” he asks earnestly.

She grins and tries to make it a joke.  “Steve, honey, I’m always careful.”  Still, she can’t shake the anxious feeling that’s come over her, the one she gets when it feels like people are watching her.

—

Steve is, not surprisingly, a ridiculously charming dinner companion.  He’s the best mix of adorable and awkward.  She’s never met a guy as good-looking as Steve, but all the ones that come close are usually total tools or completely full of themselves.  Not Steve. He just seems so…good.

He smiles when she tells him she’ll be right back, and she tries not to let her eyes dart around as she heads to the restroom.  The nerves that had grabbed hold of her earlier haven’t completely dissipated, but it’s either go to the restroom or pee at the table, and pissing oneself in a new dress is never the right impression for a first date.  Or any date, really.

She quickly takes care of business and is washing her hands when that apprehensive feeling that filled her earlier comes back in full force.  Her head snaps up and sees three ridiculously pretty women standing behind her.  Something tells her that these are not ladies to mess with.  Something, possibly the way they surround her to trap her between them and the sink, tells her that they’re definitely about to mess with her.

Suddenly she’s brought back to feeling like a nerdy high school kid being cornered by the mean girls, except this time the mean girls look like they could probably kill her with a paperclip and hide her body where no one will ever find it.

“Excuse me,” she says, trying to brazen it out and push past them.  They, of course, are having none of that.  She plasters on her best corporate smile, the one she uses when she wants to convince her coworkers to do something for her, and says, “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I believe you can,” the one in the middle says, she steps closer and as badass as Darcy would like to think she is, she takes a step back and her back presses against  the counter.  She looks desperately towards the door, but no one else comes in.  She surreptitiously reaches for her purse, and slips her fingers under the flap, looking for her taser.

“Looking for this?”  The woman on the right is holding the taser in her hand, smirking at her and Darcy lunges forward and tries to snatch it from her.  It doesn’t work, of course, and all that happens is she ends up with her arm twisted around her back while the woman holds her by the neck.  Darcy stomps on her foot, but nothing happens.

The first one who spoke comes closer and trails her finger across Darcy’s chest, her hand lingering on the pendent of her necklace, before trailing up to tug on her hair.

“What do you want?” Darcy snaps, all politeness gone, and she’s feeling terror again. She struggles but she can’t get free.

The third one finally spoke up. “Let her go.”  The woman who’d had hold of Darcy loosens her grip, and Darcy quickly backs away from the trio.  “We’d like to extend an…invitation”

Oh God, this _was_ like high school all over again.  “I’m not doing your French homework in exchange for a date with Bobby Martin,” she blurts out.

The one who’d held her captive, and who still has her taser, laughs. “I like her.”

“The feeling isn’t mutual.”  These ladies are freaking crazy.  Darcy looks desperately at the door again, willing it to open and trying to gauge whether or not she can make it past them.

“Don’t be like that, little one,” the third one says, and Darcy glares up at her.  “We want to be friends.”

“Yeah, I’m really feeling the love.”  Darcy groans internally, because _really, self?_   _Shut up._

“We think you’ve got what it takes to be a _very_ bad girl.”

“I’m plenty bad, thanks.”  She peers past them.  There’s a tiny gap between Third and Crazy, and if she just barrels through…

“Yeah, but you could be bad with us,” the first one says.  “We’ve got certain skills, and we use them very effectively.”

“Yeah, how?”

“However we want.  And usually for a lot of money.  You could be one of us.”

Darcy rolls her eyes.  She can’t help it.  This cannot be her life now. It just can’t be. “I think you’ve got the wrong girl. The only skills I have are communicating thoughts in 140 characters or less, so…”

“You’ve got more going for you than you think,” Crazy says, and Darcy snorts because it sounds like the start of a pep talk.  From a psycho.

“If you’ll excuse me, my date is waiting for me.”

She heads for the gap and tries to push past them but they catch her by the arms.  “Maybe you should think before saying no,” the first one says.

“Maybe you should let go of me.”

The door swings open, and Darcy swears she can hear angels singing.  A stunning redhead walks in and says, “Am I interrupting?”

“Restroom’s closed for cleaning,” Crazy snaps.

“Funny, that’s what the attendant outside said, too.  But it looks fine to me.”  The woman goes to the sink and begins touching up her makeup, and the other three look like they’re waiting for her to leave.  It doesn’t look like she’s going anytime soon, and Darcy could almost cheer when they finally let go of her.  The first one slips a card into her hand.  A single string of numbers.

“If you change your mind about our offer, you should give us a call.”  With that, the three crazies slip outside.  Darcy waits a beat, then turns to the redhead who is just finished re-applying her lipstick.

“Thank you,” Darcy says.

The redhead gives her a small smile.  “For what?  Come, I’ll walk with you back to your table.  Have you tried the tiramisu?  It’s very good.”

The stranger takes her arm, but she doesn’t feel threatened, and they walk back to Darcy’s table.  Before the redhead leaves Darcy with a relieved Steve, she pulls Darcy’s taser out from her bag.  “I found this in the restroom.  Is this yours?”

Darcy takes the taser back gratefully, and the redhead disappears before Darcy can ask the woman her name.

—

Darcy cuts the date short after that.  She tells Steve about what happened in the restroom because it’s fucking _weird_ and now that she’s safe outside with him, it’s kind of funny in a “holy shit, they could have killed me but I’m alive” kind of way. He wants her to go to the police, but what is she going to tell them?  Three weirdos cornered her in the restroom and left her their phone number?  Besides, despite the threatening demeanor, she doesn’t think they actually intend to hurt her.  They want her to _join_ them, which is how she knows they mistook her for someone else.

“I had a great time though,” Darcy assures him, “all things considered.”

“I’m glad.  I ordered dessert, but we can get it to go.”

“Tiramisu?”

“How’d you guess?

Darcy shrugs. “I heard it was good.”

She pays the bill.  “Think of it as my way of saying thanks.”

Steve frowns.  “I thought this was a date.”

“It can be both.”  Their dessert comes, and Steve offers to walk her home.  Which, under the circumstances, she accepts. She lets him drape his jacket around her shoulders, and they chat about their favorite parts of the city.  He says he’s a history buff and keeps her entertained with stories about New York’s past.

She almost manages to forget about the restroom incident when she sees a car barreling straight toward them.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took a bit longer than I was expecting. This story just stopped wanting to be written for a while, but hopefully I'm back on track for at least an update a week? 
> 
> Thanks to katertots for talking this out with me and for looking the chapter over!

She freezes, but Steve doesn’t. She feels his arms clamp around her, then they’re moving. She hears a clank of something hitting metal—and holy shit, did Steve just jump over the car?—before they go flying through the air. She hears the crunch of the car scraping against a building and of other people on the sidewalk screaming and she holds on to Steve tightly. He manages to land so that she’s on top and he’s taking the brunt of the fall, but her right foot gets caught underneath him and she’s pretty sure it’s not supposed to bend that way. Still, she stifles a shriek as the pain shoots through her, and Steve gets them both to their feet. He looks like he’s going to run after the car, but she whimpers pitifully when her foot touches the pavement.

He swings her up in his arms, careful to minimize impact to her right foot. She clings to him, well aware that she’s being pathetic, but she’s had a rough night. Hell, she’s had a rough month. And her ankle is killing her.

He carries her over to a bench and sets her down. He kneels in front of her, carefully taking off her shoe to inspect her ankle, when a group of teenage boys comes up to them. One of them says, “I called 911. Are you guys okay?”

Steve looks at Darcy, and she nods before leaning back against the bench. “We’re okay. Thanks.”

“The way you jumped that car was awesome!” another one says. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“That was lucky. You shouldn’t try it,” Steve says absently before he asks one of the kids to get him some ice. He sounds very commanding and authoritative right now, and Darcy smiles and closes her eyes. She has never found that trait particularly attractive until now. He probes at her ankle and she hisses in pain.

“You a medic?” she asks through gritted teeth.

“I’ve had some experience with this kind of thing.”

“Right. I guess there’s injury risk involved in security.” She sucks in a breath and sits up straight when Steve moves her ankle. She has to resist the urge to reach out and kick him because he looks so genuinely apologetic. _“_ Can you please stop poking?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he reaches out to stroke her hair. The kid comes back with the ice, and Steve places it on her ankle as the police arrive and EMTs arrive. Darcy and Steve answer questions, and Darcy feels like this is probably a good time to mention the ladies in the restroom, and the cops reassure her that they’ll look into it before they finally leave. The EMTs check out her and Steve. Steve is, remarkably, uninjured while the medic is fairly certain Darcy’s ankle is just sprained; he wraps her ankle and suggests she see a doctor about it. She doesn’t take the ambulance, because who needs _that_ fee when she’s not knocked out and a cab would be cheaper anyway.

Steve goes with her to the hospital because he’s an awesome dude and he waits with her the entire three and a half hours it takes to be seen and find out the medic is right. By this point, it’s 1:00 A.M. and she’s exhausted, but Steve remains awesome and takes her home. 

“Can I stay with you tonight?” he asks when he carries her and her shiny new crutches up to her apartment. 

She hesitates, but only for a moment, because she realizes she trusts him. He’s had ample opportunity to kidnap her or hurt her, but she’s still here, and that’s due in large part to him. And, if she’s being absolutely honest with herself, she’s a little scared to be alone right now. So she nods and lets him unlock her door. 

It doesn’t take long for him to find the bedroom because her apartment isn’t exactly huge. It seems even smaller with Steve standing in it. He sets her down on the bed, then directs him to where her extra bedding stuff is. “Help yourself to anything in the kitchen,” she tells him.

While he’s setting up camp, she hobbles as best she can over to her dresser, changes into an oversized t-shirt, debates the merits of brushing her teeth and washing her face, decides she’s too tired—almost dying is exhausting—and hobbles back to bed. A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the door.

“Come in,” she says, and Steve enters with a glass of water and the pain medication the doctor prescribed. She swallows down the pills, then cuddles into her bed. “Goodnight, Steve,” she murmurs sleepily.

“Goodnight, Darcy. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be right outside.” He closes the door behind him and she lets herself drift off to sleep, feeling safe.

—

It takes her a while to get used to going around with a sprained ankle. Steve helps her out the first day, but she tries not to rely on him too much around her apartment. He does offer to take her to work on Monday, and she says yes because she’d rather not navigate the subway system with crutches. He tells her that she’s on his own way to work anyway and it becomes a standing thing. “Only until I’m healed,” she says and he agrees. One of her coworkers sees him, and people stop by her office to wish her well and ask her about her hot new boyfriend. She doesn’t go into detail about the ankle or the relationship, because it’s a little early yet to apply the Boyfriend term.

It’s nice, really nice, having Steve. Thinking about him, about the way he makes her feel, gives her something…normal to focus on. 

She probably spends more time with him than is healthy for a budding relationship, but he makes her happy and he makes her feel safe, so she’s sure as hell not going to feel ashamed about that. After the first few days, she can hobble around the kitchen well enough to make him dinner, and he brings tiramisu, and they laugh over how they’ll actually get to eat this one. He picks her up to take her to lunch. They go to the movies. He tells her that he’d like to walk with her around Central Park, but since Darcy’s ankle isn’t up to it, they sit on a bench and people watch. Somehow they end up holding hands, and it makes Darcy bubble with happiness. They watch bad T.V. in her apartment, but her favorite thing that they do is to pick out a book, usually from her collection of childhood treasures, and cuddle up on the couch to read it out loud to each other. 

The first one they read is _The Little Prince_ and she smiles when she sees him tearing up at the end. She stretches up to kiss his cheek just as he’s turning to her to say something, and what ends up happening is Darcy’s lips graze Steve’s nose and their foreheads bump.

She laughs and leans against his shoulder, rubbing her forehead, and his arm tightens around hr. “Let’s try it like this,” he says, and leans in to brush his lips against hers. Her eyes flutter shut, and she melts into him. They pull apart, lips curving into matching smiles. And then she’s kissing him again, breath, lips, hands, skin melding until they forget all about books. Except she’s not quite ready for this next stage of their relationship yet, and apparently neither is he because they both pull back.

Still, she quite likes the kissing, and she makes sure that they get to do it as often as possible.

—

It is inevitable really that one of her coworkers catches them cuddling in the park, and all day the only thing anyone wanted to talk to her about was her super hot boyfriend. Part of her just really wants to brag all over Steve and gush about how amazing he is, because he is quite possibly the best boyfriend she’s ever had, which, she guesses, isn’t saying much. But she feels like an adult in an adult Relationship, capital “R” required. It just feels so nice to _be_ with him and to have someone she can talk to honestly, who will listen and won’t judge. She finds herself telling him things that she never told anybody, and she likes to think that he’s opening up to her, too. Even though it’s been less than two months, she knows she’s inching closer and closer to the L-word, and that scares her and thrills her all at the same time. 

When her work friend Caroline pesters her for details, all Darcy says is that she’s in a very good place right now, because what she has with Steve is special and important, and she’d like to keep it somewhat to herself until she’s ready.

She hears the collective sighs outside of her office, and she knows Steve must be there to pick her up to take her home. Even though her ankle is all healed, when she told him that she still gets that feeling that someone is watching her, he offers to keep giving her a ride to and from work. Steve knocks on the door to her office and she grabs her purse and greets him with a quick kiss because she really can’t help herself. He smiles and laces his fingers with hers and she waves cheerily to her coworkers. 

Steve doesn’t talk much about work, which she understands because a lot of his work probably involves sensitive information, but sometimes he talks about some of his coworkers when they’re bugging him. Today is one of those days, and Darcy soaks it in. It seems he’s not used to talking about himself, so it’s just nice to get a glimpse into his life when he’s not with her—although it seems these days the only times he’s _not_ with her is when they’re at work and when he goes home for the night. 

Today he’s complaining about Clint and Tony, who he’s talked about before, and their biggest offense seems to be nosiness. “They keep trying to sneak my phone and look at the pictures I have of you,” he grumbles, and Darcy laughs. “They’re curious about you.”

“I’m curious about them, too.” And she is, because Steve is so even-keeled most of the time, she’s curious about the two men who consistently seem to make Steve want to tear his hair out. “It might be fun to meet them.”

“No!” he says so emphatically that she’s taken aback. And if she’s honest with herself, she’s a little hurt. He glances at her, and he must realize how that came across because he frowns. “That’s not what I meant. I—just—you don’t need to meet them—it’s not important—this isn’t coming out right at all, isn’t?”

Darcy snorts. “I wouldn’t know. I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”

He looks flustered and he searches for a moment to try to find the right words. “You’re important. _We’re_ important. I don’t want to mess this up by introducing you to my friends too early. They’d probably scare you off.”

Darcy laughs and her heart lightens. “I don’t scare easy. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re pretty important, too.” He smiles and holds her hand the rest of the way home. 

Tonight, neither of them feel like cooking, so they order pizza and make out through “Cleopatra.” Long past the rolling of the credits, Darcy is under him, shirtless and caressing his bare back, while Steve’s lips glide along her collarbone. One of his legs is between hers, and if she moves just so, it hits just the right spot, and oh God, it all feels _so good_. She moans, and he freezes, his tongue mid-swipe across the swell of one breast.

With a ragged groan, he rolls from off top of her, landing in a heap on the floor beside her couch. “We can’t do this,” he says, and Darcy sits up, surprise mingling with her frustration because she’d thought this time...

“We can’t? Don’t you want to?” She bites her lip, looking down at him.

 “Oh, I want to. I really, really want to. But I want to be ready. And I don’t think I’m ready yet.” She closes her eyes and fights the urge to flop back on the couch and groan, because she’s been the one who hasn’t been ready for sex before and she doesn’t want to put pressure on him or make it seem like she doesn’t respect his choice. He reaches up and pulls her down for a quick kiss. “I’m sorry, Darce.”

“It’s okay, babe. Don’t worry.” She reaches for his shirt that’s hanging off the arm of the couch. “But if you don’t want me to jump your bones, we should get dressed.”

His gaze lingers on her boobs, then he reluctantly hands her her own shirt, which had been under him on the floor. After a few more kisses that end with Darcy back underneath him on the couch, they decide it’s probably best to leave her apartment. They end up walking to an ice cream place nearby that Darcy likes, and they sit outside, sharing a sundae. 

A little while later, some street performers set up shop across from the ice cream shop. She’s not sure if they’re allowed to do that, but it looks like a pretty cool show.  A couple of acrobats are performing, and behind them she can see, among others, a woman with a huge ass snake and a clown holding a unicycle..

“Let’s watch,” Darcy says, tugging at Steve’s hand to pull him over to the gathering crowd.

“Okay.” They thread their way through the crowd as the acrobats toss each other in the air and generally perform physical feats of flexibility that she can’t even begin to dream about, even on her best yoga days. 

Steve gets a call on his cell phone and he kisses her neck and telling her he’ll be right back. There’s a guy in  a funny hat talking and she’s never been so mesmerized. The next thing she knows, she’s upside down and Steve is running towards her, shouting her name. She realizes she’s been flung over the shoulder of a huge ass thing. She starts kicking and scratching, but this guy is wearing something protective and there’s just no way she can reach the taser in her pocket. Steve is trying to get to her, but he’s been waylaid by the acrobats and the lady with the snake. This is it, she thinks. This is how she’s going to die and she doesn’t even know why.

Then the guy stops suddenly, and she feels something sharp pierce her leg. She’s pretty sure he hears Steve shout, “Damn it, Barton!” just as the big man falls. He pitches backwards, and as the ground comes shooting towards her, she just knows she’s going to wake up in the hospital again.

—

When she opens her eyes, Steve is sitting next to her bed, holding her hand and staring at her worriedly. He looks like hell, but she’s never been so happy to see him.

His shoulders slump in relief when she says his name. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Hey handsome. I know why my head hurts.” She shifts and shuts her eyes agains the pain in her right leg. “But why does it feel like I’ve been shot in the leg?”

“You were shot in the leg.”

“Damn. Just healed.”

“Cl—the Avengers showed up, and I guess Hawkeye thought the only way to make sure the Strongman didn’t take you was to stop him more…permanently. Your leg got in the way.” He kisses her fingers and holds her hand up to his cheek.

“‘Scuse me for trying to get away.” She moves again and scowls. “How long was I out this time?”

“Three days.” He calls the nurse in, and they check her out and give her some more pain medication. 

He brushes his fingers across her forehead and kisses her brow. “I’m so sorry. I should have stayed with you.”

“Not your fault,” she says groggily. “Stay with me now.”

“Of course,” he says, and she lets herself drift off into oblivion, knowing that he’s there, knowing that she’s safe.


	4. Chapter 4

There’s a quiet argument going on in her hospital room, and she wishes they would cut it out. It’s giving her a headache. She recognizes one of the voices as Steve, and the other voice is familiar, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. It doesn’t matter. She just wants them to shut up.

“Steve,” she whispers, and immediately the voices stop.

The warmth of Steve’s hand is back in hers, and she feels infinitely better. “I’m here, Darce.”

“Too loud,” she says.

“I’m sorry, we’ll be quieter.” She tries to say “good” but it comes out as more of a grunt. She lets herself go back to sleep. 

\---

The argument has started again, and Darcy’s brow furrows. Steve is still holding her hand, but his fingers have tightened to the point where it hurts and she comes fully awake with a whimper. 

Steve turns to her, an apology on his face as he loosens his grip and kisses her fingers. She smiles sleepily at him, feeling that warm comfortable feeling she always gets when he’s near. It’s so much nicer being in the hospital when you know that someone is there, waiting for you. They stare at each other for a moment. Steve looks troubled by something, but before she can ask what it is, she hears someone clear his throat in the background.

“Greetings, Son of Coul. Are you here to take my iPod again? Because I am telling you, after the month I’ve had I’m not so willing to give it up without a fight.”

“Miss Lewis, I can assure you we’re not here for your iPod.”

“Yeah, well if you came for the food, even the jell-o sucks.” That gets a smile out of him, and here she thought he’d only ever do that if he were stealing candy from small children. “What can I do you for, Agent?”

“We’ve received reports that a specific group has targeted you to be eliminated, and that they plan to strike while you’re in the hospital.”

“Oh my God,” she whispers, clutching Steve’s hands tighter, her mind reeling. Yes, she finally figured out that for whatever reason, people were trying to kidnap her, but _kill_ her? “I don’t—why? Why me?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. We noticed the start of your recent string of bad luck; most of your assailants have been on SHIELD watch lists, and we’ve had you under surveillance for quite some time.”

“You what? I haven’t seen anyone watching me“ She looks to Steve for comfort, for reassurance, because what is the mess that her life has become? His face is blank, and her stomach sinks. She stares at him, then at Coulson, then at Steve again. The things that didn’t quite add up about Steve start to now, but her heart is desperately trying to reject the answer. She pulls her hand out of Steve’s; after the briefest of hesitations, he lets her go. “No,” she whispers. “Please tell me what I’m thinking isn’t true.”

“I was supposed to get the chance to tell you,” Steve says, his voice devoid of any trace of emotion. And there, right there, is where her heart breaks. She wants to hit him. She wants to hurt him. Coulson starts speaking, but she doesn’t care. She stares at Steve, who’s got his hands in his lap, looking anywhere but at her. The safety that she’d felt with him just minutes ago is in ashes and she’s heartbroken. Confused. Lost.

How fucked up is it that the thing that’s turned everything on its head is the fact that her boyfriend has been lying to her for weeks? People have been trying to kidnap or kill her, and she’s managed that mostly just fine, but this—Steve’s complicity in all of this SHIELD cloak and dagger shit—this is something she never saw coming. It’s hard to roll with the punches when she’s paralyzed by what this entire situation. Trying to stay alive is one thing. But this—having her safety net ripped away, realizing the one person she thought she could trust is someone she shouldn’t have, it throws her.

“I’d like you to leave, please,” Funny, she thought she’d be screaming, and maybe the fact that she isn’t is what makes Steve flinch almost imperceptibly. But she feels herself shutting down, and there’s no room for emotion now. She won’t make room for it. 

“Miss Lewis—“ Coulson begins, but she shakes her head.

“I want both of you out. Now.” Neither of them budges. “Fine.” She starts pulling at the wires and needles affixed to her skin and throws her legs over the side of the bed. It has, apparently been a while since she’s been on her feet and she takes a stumbling step forward. Steve moves forward to steady her, but she recoils.

A nurse walks in just in time to see her fall flat on the floor. “What’s going on here?”

“They won’t leave, so I am.”

The nurse, Martha, is one she’s familiar with from the first two times she’s been admitted. She looks more formidable than Darcy feels, and when Martha rounds on the two men, Darcy breathes a sigh of relief. Martha will make them go.

She does, but only after Coulson explains there will be a protective detail in front of her door. Fine. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t look at Steve, refuses to look at him because oh God, she can’t believe it. 

Martha helps Darcy back to the bed. Thankfully, she doesn’t ask questions as she takes Darcy’s vitals; When she’s done, she goes, leaving Darcy alone.

—

Whenever Coulson comes to her room, she pretends to be asleep. She knows that he probably knows she’s faking the hell out of it, but he surprisingly doesn’t bother her. Steve doesn’t come by, at least not while she’s pretending to be asleep, but she guesses that something must have changed since Coulson revealed himself to her. Assignment over, relationship over. If it was ever real to begin with.

Whatever. She tells herself she’s glad. She can’t see him right now, because then she’ll have to ask if any of it was real, and she doesn’t want the answer. Part of her thinks, part of her desperately hopes, that he cares about her. He’s been so much a part of her the last few weeks, and it can’t all possibly be fake. Then again, he’s with SHIELD, so how can anything he says be real?

And speaking of the devil, there he is. Captain Rogers—Captain fucking America, because some of Coulson’s monologue the other day pierced her poor, addled brain and things made even _more_ sense, though she didn’t want them to. He walks in with Coulson and another, shorter guy who looks vaguely familiar. It’s too late to slam her eyes shut and pretend she’s been sleeping this whole time, but she tries anyway. Coulson ignores it.

“Oh good, you’re awake. Miss Lewis, this is Agent Barton. He and his team will be handling your relocation.” She blocks out Steve and all the feelings associated with him, and focuses on the other man. Agent Barton. The name sounds familiar and she rolls it around in her head, remembers the night that landed her in here, and her eyes pop open.

“You’re the fucker who shot me.”

Barton shrugs and says, “You’re welcome.”

Darcy scoffs incredulously. “You _shot_ me. I’m not thanking you for that. God, everyone in this room sucks.”

Barton laughs and Darcy flips him off. Then she remembers the other thing that Coulson said. “Relocation?”

“Yes. For your own safety, we’d like to move you into SHIELD’s protective custody.”

“Not a chance in hell,” she answers immediately, because no. The last few hours have done a number on her life, and on her faith in her own judgment, but no way in hell is she moving anywhere she might run into Captain Rogers. Because he isn’t Steve, not anymore. Maybe he never was. But it doesn’t do her any good now to dwell on how everything could quite have possibly been a lie.

“This is for your own safety,” Coulson says.

She glares at him, like it’s his fault that this whole mess happened. For all she knows, it could be. “You can go fuck yourself.” 

“Need I remind you that the plan to _kill_ _you_ during your stay in the hospital?”

“Well, since I’m _always_ in the hospital, it doesn’t sound like a half bad plan,” she murmurs, more to herself than to the people in the room. She sees Captain Rogers’ jaw clench and Coulson is as impassive as ever. Barton, however, is outright grinning.

“I like her,” Barton says to no one in particular, and she really wishes she had a bed pan handy because she wants to throw something at his smirking face. Actually, she wants to throw something at all of them, but it’s easier to focus on Barton.

Coulson sends him what Darcy is sure is the Agent equivalent of a withering glare, then turns his attention back to her. “You seem surprisingly blasé about this whole situation, Miss Lewis. I’d have thought you’d treat this situation with more gravity.”

“I assure you, I am feeling quite grave about the situation, considering it’s almost put me in a grave. Several times, in fact. So why are you now calling attention to the man behind the curtain? Is there someone else you’d like to send in to insinuate into my life?”

“Captain Rogers’ mission was not to—“

Darcy feels the anger and the hurt rushing up from the well in which she’s trying to keep them buried. She’s not a mission, damn it. She’s person. “Barge into my life and—no. You know what, lets put a moratorium on all things Captain Rogers at the moment after you answer this one question for me. Was he sent to get information from me or was he sent to protect me?”

She sees Coulson weighing the answers in his mind, and she wonders if he’s going to tell her the truth before finally he settles on, “Both.”

Which she knew already, but it still stung. A lot. “Right. So what information do you want?”

A flicker of surprise crosses Coulson’s face before he asks, “There have been at least four different attempts to abduct you by four different groups. Do you have any idea why they are coming after you?”

“No.”

“Take a little more time to think about this, Miss Lewis. It’s important to your safety.”

“I don’t need to think about it. I have no super powers. I barely have marketable skills. I tweet for a living, and other than that thing with Thor in New Mexico, there is absolutely nothing noteworthy about my background. Which, I don’t even know alien bugs would _want_ to know about that.”

“Thor?” Steve asks in surprise, but Darcy and Coulson ignore him. 

“You’re sure?” Coulson asks.

Darcy nods. “There must be some other Darcy Lewis out there who is doing something incredible and awesome, while all of your baddies have caught a major case of _stupid_ and have chosen the wrong girl.”

“You can’t think of any reason at all why they might be coming after you?”

Seriously, how many times is he going to ask her this? “You know, I forgot. Captain America and I had sex months ago and now I’m having his super baby.” 

“Maybe now’s not the time for joking.” Steve says, eyes are grim, but she can’t bring herself to care about that right because, oh hey, he’s an asshole.

She deigns to look directly at him for the first time. “You either get sarcastic bitch Darcy or sobbing like a baby Darcy. There are no other options. And I can’t tell you anything, so it seems like your little charade was all for nothing.”

Coulson clears his throat, drawing her attention back to him. “About moving into SHIELD protective custody—”

“The answer is still no.” She is not giving her life over to SHIELD. There’s been so much upheaval that she just can’t even think about that, and if _he’s_ going to be there, then there’s no way in hell she’s emotionally equipped to deal with that right now. “Hell no.” Just in case she needs to reiterate the point.

Barton grins at her. “Hey, it can’t be any worse than that time you got stranded in that roach motel with your prom date senior year.”

True enough. Her lips curve into a smile at that memory, then her eyes pop open. “How do you know that? Is that in my file?” She whirls her head around to look at Steve. The pain in her head barely registers under the outrage she feels. “You told them? Why would you tell them that? What else did you tell them? Were you all laughing at me behind my back?”

Steve looks like he’sgoing to be sick. “No!”

Tense silence hangs over the room for a moment before Barton finally says, “He didn’t exactly tell us.”

“Oh my God.” Just when she thinks it can’t get any worse, it keeps getting worse. “ You were _listening_? Were you listening on _every_ date?”

When she thinks about all of the things she told him, all of the things she trusted him with—she wants to cry. She wants to vomit. “Darcy—“

“So the other night—that’s why you didn’t want—oh my God.”

Steve kneels beside the bed, but she won’t let him take her hand. “I swear to you, I turned it off. No one was listening then.”

“Were you ever _actually_ interested in me?” The silence that follows is taut and tense and it tells her pretty much all she needs to know, she guesses.

Coulson looks bored with the whole thing and he shakes his head. “I knew I should have sent Agent Barton.”

“You should have asked _me_ ,” she shouts. “And I would have told you everything I knew, and I would have gratefully accepted protection had I thought I needed it because I’m not an idiot. So don’t tell me that you should have sent someone else when you should have told me the truth.”

Nurse Martha comes in, face like an avenging angel, ready to do battle. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing. They were just leaving.”

Martha glares at the men until they move. Coulson looks at Darcy. “Just remember, a protective detail is still outside your door, Miss Lewis. They’ll remain there until you’re discharged.”

“Okay.” She doesn’t say thank you, because SHIELD’s probably not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. They want something from her, she wants to stay alive, and now they both know the score. She sees him nod to Barton, and he takes his place outside her door. At least it isn’t Steve.

\---

A few days, despite her doctor and Martha’s attempts to dissuade her, Darcy checks herself out of the hospital. Her leg is still way sore, but she can put weight on it now, so she’s leaving. If she never sees the inside of one of these again, it’ll be too soon. She just wants to be home, where she can purge her place of the memories of Steve. She makes a note to stop by the store to get some candles. A friend of hers in undergrad was totally into home cleansing rituals, and Darcy figures it can’t hurt.

She’s putting on her own clothes when she sees Coulson and Steve standing in the doorway of her soon-to-be former hospital room. She wonders if it will ever _not_ hurt to see Steve, and she figures since she never plans on setting eyes on him again after today, it can’t doesn’t even matter. “Miss Lewis, we strongly advise you to reconsider your refusal to move into SHIELD.”

“Fine.” She’s silent a moment, then says, “I’ve reconsidered, and I still say up yours. Look, I’m still alive, you did your job, now leave me alone. I have a job and a life I’d like to get back to. I’ll be sure to call you if I figure out why people want to kidnap me. It’s been real. I hope to not see you around.”

“If you don’t come with us, we’ll be forced to assign an agent to you for protection.”

Darcy shrugs. Doesn’t matter. Now she knows, she’s not letting any of those little shits into her life again. “Fine. Just not him,” she says with a nod toward Steve, and she shoulders her bag and hobbles out.

—

After a day spent puttering around at home, lighting incense and candles, and stuffing everything Steve related into an old shoebox in the back of her closet (she doesn’t know why, but she can’t bring herself to throw any of that away), she’s going stir crazy. Her apartment has never seemed this lonely before, or so big, and she feels like she’s rattling around in it. Her boss had given her a couple of weeks off of work, and she calls the office to ask if she can come back early.

After listening to his spiel, though, she knows that’s not going to be possible. After a long meandering discourse on workplace safety, he finally says, “This is a very difficult decision for us, but we have to let you go.”

She is, quite frankly, stunned. “What? I have never been a threat to workplace safety.” 

“Your boyfriend explained what was going on,“ her boss says quietly.

“My boyfriend?”

“He explained that there was some danger to you, and while we’re praying for your safety, we cannot in good conscience allow you to come to work when the threat might spread to the others. Since he doesn’t know when the threat might be resolved, we can’t hold your position for you. I’m so sorry.” And he sounds it. It doesn’t ease the sting of losing a job she really loved, but it’s better than nothing, she guesses.

Darcy closes her eyes, taking a deep breath to stave back the tears. “I’m sorry, too. Can I at least come and get my stuff?” 

“We’ve sent it by courier. Our expense of course.”

“Of course. Thank you.”

Darcy hangs up the phone, still slightly shocked. She’s lost her boyfriend (who wasn’t even her boyfriend), lost her job, and she’ll probably lose the apartment, too, because there’s no way she can pay for it without a job. And until this whole thing is resolved—if it’s ever resolved—she really can’t go bringing her brand of trouble to another place of employment. Her sadness turns to anger and she stomps to the door.

She flings it open, and while the hall is empty, she knows that Barton’s out there. “Barton! Tell Captain Rogers he’s a fucker.”

The only response she gets is, “Keep your door closed.”

A laugh echoes through the hall as she flips up her middle finger in his general direction.

An hour later, there’s knock at her door. “Must be the courier,” she mutters, and peeps through the peephole. Sure enough, there’s a dude standing there, wearing one of the local delivery company’s uniforms, and she opens the door a crack. “Thanks,” she says, just as he pushes into the room, the box he’s holding plummeting to the floor as he lunges for her. “Oh, goddammit,” she shouts as she tries to find him off. It takes embarrassingly little effort for him to subdue her.

“Barton!” she shouts, as she scratches and claws at her assailant. He holds a gun to her head, and where did that even come from?

“Stop moving.” She doesn’t. She thinks she’d rather be shot than kidnapped, even if it means death or another trip to the hospital. A redheaded woman appears in the doorway, pointing a gun at Darcy’s assailant. She recognizes her as the woman from the restaurant when she almost got ran over, and of course SHIELD has agents everywhere.

Darcy stomps on the guy’s toes, but he still doesn’t let her go. “I’ll kill her,” he tells the redhead.

“Go ahead,” the woman says. “I just can’t let you take her.”

Darcy is outraged. After all this time and effort, and it’d just be easier if she _died_? “Wait just a goddamn minute,” she shouts, just as she hears the slightest whoosh of air as someone drops down behind her and the not-delivery dude. Her attacker turns and pops off a few shots before Barton whams him in the head with his elbow. The assailant goes down hard. So does she. Neighbors are streaming out of the hall, wondering what the hell is going on, and Darcy groans.

Damn it, there is no way she’s not getting kicked out of her apartment now. When she sees the bullet hole in the wall, she sighs. She’s probably not getting her security deposit back, either.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this has taken so long to get out! Thank you for your patience! Also, thanks to katertots for being awesome and looking this over for me!

She does not, thank Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, need to go back to the hospital. The redhead, Black Widow, takes one look at Darcy’s leg, pronounces her “fine” and drags her to her feet. If Darcy’s leg hurts like a mother where she went down, she’s not going to complain because who is she to contradict the _Black Widow_? At least she doesn’t have to worry about ripped stitches since those were out before she left the hospital. 

She’s sitting on her couch, listening to Barton and Widow handle her neighbors, the police, and all the other little SHIELD agents when Steve comes bursting through the door. He draws her into his arms, and she sinks into him before she remembers.

Shoving him away, she gets to her feet, ignoring the sharp pain in her leg. “What the hell happened?” he asks. “Someone is trying to kidnap you, or did you forget that?”

Of course, Captain Rogers fucking blames her for getting attacked in her own home. “I thought he was a delivery guy dropping off my stuff. Because I was, you know, _fired._ ”

He jaw tightens, and he clenches his hands at his sides. Good. At least he’s showing some kind of reaction. If she’s hurting, he should at least feel _something_.  “I’m not apologizing.”

Darcy shrugs and curls up in her arm chair. “Didn’t expect you to.”

Apparently he doesn’t believe her, because he keeps going. “You being there was going to be a danger to others—“

“Right,” Darcy says sagely, because God forbid she actually think he’s concerned about her beyond the scope of whatever his assignment is. Was. Whatever. “The greater good and all of that. Can’t forget what’s really important.”

“Darcy, _you’re_ really important.”

“Just…don’t.” She’s tired and she’s sore, and she doesn’t have the energy to sort through her emotions right this second. No, it’s better to just shelve any talk about whatever it was they were until…well, forever, if she can get away with it. “Well, it looks like Coulson is getting his wish. After this, I’ve got nowhere to go except there. Unless that was part of the plan.”

He grits his teeth; she can actually _hear_ them grinding and she takes a small measure of satisfaction in that. After the lifetime she’s having, she needs to find joy in _something._

She is, indeed, evicted from her apartment. Steve and other SHIELD minions help her pack, and by help her pack, she means they pack all of it, except for her underwear because one of those agents won’t stop looking at her boobs, and she’d rather _not_ imagine what he’d do with her underwear if he got a hold of it. She sits on her couch and directs them, and soon all of her things are on their way to her new quarters.

Black Widow—Natasha, she says to call her—comes back to the apartment after transferring the prisoner, and she helps with the packing, which is when Darcy gets off her ass, too. Darcy checks the closet to make sure that she didn’t leave any of her work clothes. She finds Natasha there, the Steve box open in her hands. Darcy’s breath catches when she sees a picture of her and Steve from one of their walks in Central Park. He’s pressing his lips to her cheek while she laughs and takes the picture. Was it real? How could it be? But how could it not be? 

She swallows hard, and Natasha looks at her. “Where should I put this?” she asks.

Darcy takes a deep breath.“Leave it here.”

—

She rides with Barton and Natasha to her new digs, and her jaw drops when they pull up to Stark Tower. “ _This_ is where SHIELD is located?”

“No,” Natasha says with a faint smile. “There were some who felt that the quarters at SHIELD were…less than hospitable. So you’ve been upgraded.” 

“It means that Nat and Cap went to bat for you when they saw the dingy little room they were gonna put you in,” Barton chimes in from behind the wheel as he pulls into the parking garage. Natasha leads her up to her room, which is probably four times the size of her entire apartment. Former apartment. 

“Wow,” Darcy says, looking around at the cool white and gleaming chrome. It doesn’t have the homey feel of her old place, but she won’t complain about being stuck here for the duration.

“You’re here under the condition that you don’t leave the Tower until the threat is resolved,” Natasha says, and Darcy nods, because hell, she doubts she’ll even leave her room. “Anything you need, just ask JARVIS. Food and entertainment are at SHIELD’s expense, so I would take advantage of that.”

Darcy laughs and says, “Thank you.”

“You’re free to come into the common room when you’d like, and JARVIS will tell you which areas of the tower you aren’t allowed in.” Natasha is about to leave when she hesitates at the door. “He lives here, too. Just so you know.” 

“I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”

“Of course you can,” Natasha says with a nod before she leaves Darcy alone with her thoughts. She thinks of seeing Captain Rogers around the tower, and she really does think she can handle it. She’ll just never leave this room. That seems like the grown up thing to do.

—

It turns out she does have to leave her room eventually. Coulson stops by a few days later, and while she’d like nothing more than to throw a paperweight at his stupid, impassive face, she’s bored out of her mind so she’ll at least listen to what he has to say.

And when he says, “We’d like to figure out why these groups are after you,” she doesn’t mind so much the unspoken _so we can figure out how best we can use you_ , because she wants to figure out what’s up and get the hell out of dodge. Maybe she’ll get out of New York, head to San Francisco and become a beat writer. No, she hates beat literature. She’ll write romance novels instead, where men aren’t stupid liars who make people fall in love with them when all they really want is just to use these awesome ladies and break their hearts—

“Miss Lewis!” Coulson’s voice pulls her out of her reverie.

“What?” He looks down meaningfully at the little strips of paper littering the table in front of her. It’s what was left of the grocery list she’d made earlier. “Oh.”

“Is everything alright, Miss Lewis?”

Darcy shakes her head, scooping up the little scraps. “You know, I really don’t think so, but let’s move on. How are we going to figure out why your baddies are on me like white on rice.”

“More in depth background checks, interviews, medical tests—“ Coulson continues on, but Darcy’s brain freezes at the whole medical thing.

“I’m not going back to the hospital,” she says firmly, letting the little paper scraps fall from her hands. “Unless I’m dying, I’m not going back. You can’t make me.” It sounds childish, she knows, but she isn’t going back there. She’s spent so much time in hospitals of late, and it’s all just too much.

“You’re not going back to the hospital. There’s someone who can run the tests from here.”

Darcy takes a deep breath, pulls up her big girl panties and reminds herself that this is necessary. She wants her life back, this is how she’s going to get it. “Right. Okay. Just let me know when and where I need to do this stuff.”

Coulson hesitates, the briefest of pauses, but she can see his mind working there. “We can do the interviews and blood tests here if you’d prefer.” It’s a concession, almost an apology, and even if she’s still pissed at everyone in the entire world it seems, she appreciates the gesture. She debates taking him up on that offer but in the end she decides against it.

“Thank you, but no thank you.” It would be impossible, and probably tortuously boring, to stay in here all day, every day. Sure, she doesn’t want to see Steve, but she really is a big girl. She can handle this shit. Her heart has been broken before she’d managed to patch herself up just fine. Maybe she’d never been in love before, but she’s not going to let this break her. 

Besides, she doesn’t want that—any of that—tainting this space. Yes, it’s the reason that she’s here, but she’s not going to shroud herself in it until she can’t escape it anymore.

“When you’re off your antibiotics and pain medication, we’ll see when Dr. Banner has time to see you.”

“That’s fine. One more thing, Agent,” she says, rising to her feet. Her leg is feeling stronger, but it’s still sore. It’s a clear signal that it’s time for him to leave, and he stands with her. “My family. I want them to be safe.”

“Already taken care of, Miss Lewis,” he assures her. “There are agents watching over them.”

“No. I don’t want them taken care of like you took care of me.” Maybe she imagines it, but she thinks he winced. At least a little. It’s almost satisfying. I want you to tell them the truth. I want them to know what they might be up against.“ 

“Miss Lewis—“

“I don’t want them operating blind,” she says fiercely. This isn’t a point she can concede. She wants her family safe, and if there’s one thing she’s learned in the last few days, it’s that knowledge is power, and the more they know, the better they can arm themselves. “I don’t want them letting the wrong people into their lives when it might just be a play to get to me or whatever the fuck is going on.”

“We can’t—“

“They find out, or I walk.” It’s mostly an empty threat, even though Darcy’s confident that she’d be able to find a way out of here eventually, if the need arises. 

Coulson sighs, and she thinks he might be about to tell her to go fuck herself, when he finally nods and walks to the door. “Okay. Does this make us even?”

“Not by a long shot.” She slams the door in his face. It doesn’t feel good. It just feels vindictive and childish. She almost feels guilty, even, but she tries to shake that feeling off. 

—

She meets with Coulson and Natasha in the Stark Tower common room for the residential floors and she proceeds to thoroughly pick apart every aspect of her life. No stone goes unturned, really, but at least when she goes over her sexual history, Coulson is nice enough to give her the illusion of privacy by leaving the room. They do a brief overview of her life up until the first attack. That’s all for the day, Coulson says, but they’ll ask more in-depth questions tomorrow. 

“Oh goody,” she mutters as her fingers twirl agitatedly with her necklace. Coulson and Natasha leave and Darcy debates hanging out in the common room for maybe a second before she remembers that Steve lives here, too, and nope. Instead, she goes back to her temporary quarters and proceeds to download fifty books she’s been wanting to read because Natasha said SHIELD was paying, so why the hell not?

Of course, they confiscate her stuff the next day. They call it “investigating” but seriously, they couldn’t stagger when they took her tech? 

“Can I not have one nice thing?” Darcy demands as Coulson bags her phone, iPad, MacBook, and dammit, her iPod. Coulson actually rolls his eyes at her and nods at Sitwell, who is giving Coulson a run for his money in the unreadable department. Sitwell hands her a box, and where did that even _come_ from? 

Inside there’s the Stark equivalent for each of the things that SHIELD has commandeered. It’s a pretty sweet set, but Darcy scowls at them. “You couldn’t have told me about this before I got all pissy?”

“No.” Coulson grins at her and he and Sitwell skedaddle, leaving Darcy with her shiny new toys. At least she thinks they’re hers. The first thing she does with them is to look for any signs that SHIELD is monitoring her computer usage. Darcy is somewhat mollified that, from what she can see, they aren’t. 

The next few days, the routine is the same. Interrogation by Natasha and Coulson, then back to her room to play with her new tech. And then she’s done with her meds.

Coulson calls to tell her that Dr. Banner can see her tomorrow morning at eight and that she needs to fast for twelve hours. She makes a face at that, and in a completely ridiculous move, stuffs her face full of highly processed, yet delicious, foods at 7:30 that night. She regrets it five minutes after she’s done, which seems to be the story of her life of late, and she doesn’t like it. 

Natasha walks her up to the lab and Darcy braces herself for more questioning because that seems to be her only human interaction these days, but Natasha just points out the different aspects of the tower along the way.

It’s surprisingly nice and relaxed and Darcy lets herself forget, for a second at least, why she’s here. 

She’s reminded again when she sees the sleek, streamlined lab where Dr. Banner is. It’s so different than Jane’s, which was a hodgepodge of self-made equipment and scattered notes. It doesn’t look anything like a hospital, which Darcy appreciates, although when she sees Dr. Banner, she is less than reassured. She recognizes him.

“You used to teach at Culver,” she says quietly, shaking his hand. “There are pictures of you all over Culver’s science department. But you’re a physicist, not a physician.”

His lips kick up a little, but his smile looks sad. “Let’s just say I’ve expanded my horizons. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”

Darcy resists the urge to ask Natasha to stay, and soon she’s alone with Dr. Banner. He’s quiet, efficient as he gets the materials to draw her blood. He feels around for the best vein to use, ties the tourniquet and preps the area, gives her a Hulk-shaped stress toy to squeeze, then proceeds to draw at least a third of the blood in her body.

“Are you a vampire, Dr. Banner?” she asks, digging her fingers into the Hulk’s squishy, green form. “Stocking up?”

He chuckles and takes out the vial, replacing it with yet another. “I’m almost done, Miss Lewis.”

“Darcy,” she says, because despite the fact that he’s somehow affiliated with SHIELD, she feels comfortable around him. It’s dangerous, she knows, at least to her privacy and peace of mind, but she _needs_ a friendly face. 

“Darcy,” he repeats with a smile. He laughs when her stomach grumbles loudly, and his face transforms from serious and haunted to something younger, lighter. “We’ll get food in you yet.” He removes the last vial, takes the needle from her arm, ties a bandage around it with strict instructions to leave it on for twenty minutes, then waves a plastic cup at her. “Time to pee in the cup.”

Darcy sighs. “Oh, joy.” He points her to the bathroom, and when she comes out he’s got a pack of crackers and a carton of apple juice waiting for her. She washes her hands, and settles in his lab to have her snack. It’s better than going back to her room alone, in any case. Darcy doesn’t ask if she can stay, but he doesn’t ask her to leave. When she finishes her snack, he puts more juice and a bottle of water in front of her, as well as a muffin. 

When he’s done doing whatever it was he was doing, he comes to stand in front of her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “How are you holding up?”

Inexplicably, she feels tears stinging her eyes. “I’m surviving. It’s all spun so out of control and I don’t know how this is my life now.”

“I understand,” he says quietly. “We all do. Everyone who lives in this tower, we know what it’s like to lose control of your life.”

“Do you ever get it back?”

He smiles softly, kindly, and for the first time in days she feels like she’s found someone she can rely on. She won’t trust it, but she can let herself sink into it for a while. “What?” he asks. “Your life or control?”

“Both. Either.”

“I’ll let you know when it happens.” He reaches for her hand and squeezes gently. “I wish I could tell you it will all be alright. But you’ve gotten this far. You can get through this.”

Darcy nods, trying to believe that. “This…none of this is what I wanted.”

“I know,” he says quietly. He takes her in his arms, and for the first time since she was released from the hospital, she lets herself cry.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really do apologize for the huge gaps of time between chapters. School gets ridiculous, and when it isn't, sometimes this fic decides it doesn't want to come out and play.
> 
> Thanks to katertots, merideath, and blackglass for the handholding, proofreading, and their general awesomeness because that made this chapter possible. Also, thanks to everyone who's commented, kudo'd, and bookmarked. You're all seriously awesome.

Darcy lets herself mope for a bit after her crying jag with Bruce. Despite everything, it actually makes her feel better. 

Even if she’s still bored. Despite the Tower common room being chock full of all sorts of entertainment goodies, she avoids it like the plague because she’s not ready to see Steve. And her brain is perverse—now that she’s got all the time in the world to read and watch the movies and TV, her brain doesn’t want to do any of those things.

Instead, she pulls out her shiny new Stark technology and busies herself trying to hack into SHIELD’s systems because she knows it will annoy Coulson. 

There are her daily Let’s-Pick-Darcy’s-Life-Apart sessions with Coulson and Natasha to look forward to, even if they’ve combed through everything sideways and backwards and upside down. Bruce comes and finds her during one of these sessions to let her know that hey, congratulations, she’s human. And not pregnant, which she already knew, but Coulson was apparently leaving no stone unturned.

Bruce does crack a joke about her blood sugar levels, and since she’s eating a donut right at that moment, she chucks it at his head. “It’s been a very stressful situation, okay?” she mutters, and slinks down in her seat. 

Coulson, of course, gives her that _parent_ look that makes her feel like she’s five. Admittedly, donut throwing is a very five year-old thing to do, but she doesn’t really like the frown that Coulson’s reaction puts on Bruce’s face. 

Natasha cuts him off mid scold. “As you can see, the donut has not harmed Dr. Banner in any significant manner.”

Bruce leaves them to their questioning after that, but not before smiling at the face Darcy makes at him. During lunch, she finds him in his lab. “If you’re going to criticize my eating habits, make me eat healthy.”

He does, cooking her lunch in the common room’s kitchenette. Darcy looks around furtively every few minutes, afraid that Steve will come in but he doesn’t, and she spends a pleasant hour and a half talking to Bruce. It becomes a ritual for them over the next few days. Her days are Coulson and Natasha, poking around in SHIELD’s files, and Bruce. She has to say, Bruce is her favorite part of the day. She doesn’t even mind that the stuff he makes is high in nutrients and low in the comfort necessities of sugar and grease.

—

Despite the boredom, her days aren’t so bad. Some days, though, she feels like she’s going to go crazy. She’s never been an outdoors type of person, but she hadn’t realized until now just how much she loves the feel of the sun kissing over her skin, and not through a window. 

When she walks into Bruce’s lab, she’s feeling particularly wilty. “Darcy, is everything okay?”

“Do you know how long I’ve been trapped inside?” she demands. 

Bruce sets aside his notes. “Is this a philosophical kind of question?”

She rolls her eyes at him as she settles on a stool across from him. “No. A literal one. I haven’t left this building in two and a half weeks. I need to feel the sun.”

“You have floor to ceiling windows,” he teases, but she lays her head on the table in frustration.

“I need to feel like I’m not a prisoner in here. Can you help me?” There’s no one else for her to ask. Well, she could always ask Natasha, but Natasha is the reason why she’s in such a nice place to begin with. She doesn’t want to seem ungrateful.

“Coulson won’t like it,” Bruce says with a frown.

“Yes, well Coulson isn’t the one who feels like her soul is slowly seeping out of her body.”

His face softens and he pats her on the hand. “I’m not making any promises, but I’ll see what I can do. Now how do you feel about satay?”

—

The next day when she walks into his lab, she finds out that he came through for her. He’s holding a basket, and he leads her to a roof garden she hadn’t even noticed from the ground floor. It’s almost like a miniature, walled-in park. It’s beautiful, and she holds her arms out and closes her eyes, embracing the sunshine.

After a moment, she looks at Bruce, who’s smiling at her. “Coulson okayed this?” she asks.

He shrugs. “I didn’t ask Coulson. Tony increased some of the security measures for this area. You should be safe from kidnappers up here, at least. Although you probably shouldn’t come out here without one of us. Just in case.”

“I won’t,” she says with a grin. She resists the urge to twirl because this feels so nice. “Thank you.”

They sit and eat, and it’s such a beautiful day that Darcy thinks she could stay up here forever. “So _would_ Coulson be okay with it?”

Bruce grins. “I thought you didn’t care what Coulson thought.”

“I just don’t want Agent Angrypants to yell at you.”

“Trust me, he won’t yell at me,” Bruce says, a wry smile twisting his lips. It’s tinged with sadness, and she wants to hug him. 

“Why not?”

“They prefer that I…avoid high stress situations.” She’s not quite sure how she makes the leap from one thing to another, but she does and her eyes go wide in surprise.

“Holy shit, you’re the Hulk.”

He opens his mouth, shuts it again, blinks at her. “Yes. I understand if you’d prefer—“

She snorts, interrupting him mid-sentence. “Don’t be stupid. You’re one of the two real friends I have right now. So what if half of you happens to be the Jolly Green Giant’s angry second cousin?” Really, she isn’t scared. She’s pretty sure that whether he’s Bruce or the Hulk, he wouldn’t hurt her. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

Darcy bites her lip and reaches out to cover his hand with hers. “Thank you for not lying to me about it.” Even though she’s told herself that she can’t trust anybody, not anymore, she trusts him. She isn’t lying about him being one of her only friends. After all, he brought her some sunshine.  

—

Some days, after lunch with Bruce, Darcy hacks back into the SHIELD system and pokes around. She’s good, she knows, but she also knows that there’s no way they don’t know she’s there, and she’s interested in what they’re letting her see and why. She is, however, pretty sure that she’s not _supposed_ to have access to surveillance video of Black Widow in action. 

“Take that, Bembridge Scholars,” she mutters to herself as she brings up the footage.

Natasha’s a sight to behold in battle, and Darcy finds herself watching, mouth slightly agape as Natasha takes on enemy after enemy and comes out on top. It doesn’t matter how many people she’s taking on. She knows exactly what she’s doing. If Darcy could do even a quarterof that, there’s no way she’d be in the situation she’s in now.

Darcy can see the moment where Natasha makes the decision, whether the life in her hands continues or stops. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, they always live. Darcy wants that kind of control. Not the power of life or death. She just wants control over her own life.

After her daily interrogation session, she pulls Natasha aside. “I want to learn how to do what you do,” she says quietly. 

Natasha raises her eyebrows. “I know how to do a great many things. Which thing are you interested in?”

“I want to learn how to fight,” Darcy says, pushing her hair out of her face. “To defend myself. If they ever try to take me again, I want to be able to fight them off. I’m tired of being weak.”

“You were never weak,” Natasha says firmly, smiling and squeezing Darcy’s shoulder. “But I will teach you to be stronger.”

That statement paired with that smile should terrify her, Darcy knows. She’s seen that smile bring a lesser man to his knees. But Darcy is relieved. She’s taking back her control.

—

Apparently, she is only taking control of _some_ things. A few days later, she has her first encounter with Steve— _Captain America_ , she reminds herself—which goes about as well as can be expected considering she turns tail and runs the other way. She doesn’t even bother pretending she doesn’t hear him calling after, just runs like a bat out of hell. Later, she kicks herself for this. She’s a Lewis, and Lewises don’t run away from their problems—not even lying jerkfaces who shatter their hearts into a million pieces and then stomp on the remains. 

The next time she sees him, she manages to walk at a normal pace, and she says, “Captain,” so coolly she wonders that the hall isn’t covered in ice. For a moment, she thinks he’s going to try to stop her, and she’s not prepared for this, but luckily she sees Bruce coming down the corridor and she latches onto his arm and chats his ear off about absolutely nothing until Steve is out of sight.

This exchange is probably what prompts Bruce to butt into her business. They’re sitting in the garden, as is now their custom. Lunch is finished on the table between them. Bruce is drinking tea, Darcy stares unseeing into her cup of coffee. 

“Are we ever going to talk about Steve?” he asks. Part of her is surprised that he’d go there. The other part wonders why he’s waited so long to bring it up. Either way, she’s not talking about _him_.

She sloshes the coffee around in her cup, not looking at Bruce. “I have nothing to say about Captain America.”

“I told myself I wasn’t going to meddle—“ he begins.

“Then don’t,” she says emphatically. 

“But he looks almost as miserable as you do.”

“Only almost?” she asks caustically.

Bruce doesn’t appear stung—or even mildly upset—at her tone. “I don’t think anyone can be as miserable as you. You win the misery contest. Short term, anyway. If it helps, he cares about you. A lot.”

Her heart stutters, mends, shatters again, all in one moment because she’s not ready for this conversation. She’s not ready to think about it or process it. She thought she was okay, but clearly she isn’t, and she stands up. “I don’t—“

“I know you don’t want to hear it. But you need to,” Bruce says so firmly it reminds her of her dad. She sits. “He talked about you all the time. Not as an assignment, but as a girlfriend. Last time I was in his office, there was a picture of you on his desk. He was always proud of you when you accomplished something, he’d always tell us funny things that you said. His eyes would light up when he talked about you. He lied, and it wasn’t right. I’m not saying that you have to forgive him. But he does care about you. It was real for him, too, and you deserve to know that.”

She wraps her arms around herself. “I—so what is that supposed to mean? What do you want me to do about it?”

“I don’t have those kinds of answers for you. I just want you to think about it”

Having an older, wiser friend sucks sometimes. She can’t do anything _but_ think about it. It swirls through her mind throughout the day.

On the one hand, her heart lifts at the image Bruce has laid out for her. On the other hand, when she thinks about him, when she thinks about whatever their relationship was, her heart hurts so badly she has to push the memory of it away for a moment. 

She doesn’t see how this changes anything. She doesn’t see how it doesn’t.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, sorry about the wait for an update. 
> 
> As always, thanks to blackestglass, katertots, and merideath, who helped talk me through this chapter and looked over this for me. Any remaining errors are totally my fault.

“I’m ready,” Darcy says, tying her hair back in a ponytail. She looks kickass in her workout outfit, and she can only tell a little that she’d taken an arrow to the leg a few weeks ago. Darcy shakes out her limbs to loosen them up, and looks at Natasha, whose stillness somehow makes Darcy feel even more restless. “What weapons are we starting with? Guns? Knives? Can you show me how to use those throwing star things? I’ve never seen you use them, but you have to know how.”

A slight smile turns up the corners of Natasha’s lips. “You are, I think, getting too far ahead of yourself. To walk, first you must crawl. You have seen the videos that SHIELD has. What are my most important weapons?”

Darcy tries to conjure up her memories of the surveillance footage. “Gun? Your gauntlet thingies?”

Natasha shakes her head. “My mind and my body. Those are my greatest weapons. There will be times when there is no time to reach for your taser or a gun or any other kind of weapon. You must use your head first, and your body will follow.”

“Right, Mr. Miyagi,” Darcy says with a firm nod. “Crawl, then walk; mind and body.”

Natasha smiles. “Something like that. Now we begin.”

They focus on mind first. Natasha is a hands on type of teacher and she comes at Darcy, grabbing her in a chokehold. Darcy shrieks, and struggles to get away until Natasha tightens her hold. “Now, Darcy, engage the mind. What do you notice about your situation?”

“That I can’t breathe,” Darcy chokes out.

Natasha makes an impatient noise. “Yes, but beyond that.”

“Beyond that?”

“Yes. Tell me everything you notice, about your opponent, about your situation.” Natasha doesn’t let Darcy up until she does as she asks. And then she makes her do it again, “because there are at least six things you missed. You must be able to think, to take stock, in any situation, and you must do it quickly. We will train you to do this.” 

Darcy’s first session lasts two hours and she doesn’t learn how to throw a single punch. “The basics,” Natasha says at the end, “will save your life,” and Darcy tries to hold on to that. It’s one more weapon, she tells herself, and she is determined to hone it until she can wield it well enough to keep her alive.

The lessons after involve ten minutes of Natasha reviewing the last lesson, then another ten of going over an avenue of attack and then using Clint to help demonstrate different ways to counter those attacks. The rest of the lesson is spent teaching Darcy how to do it. Darcy tries, she really does, but that doesn’t stop her from landing on her ass, or being carried a few steps before Natasha shows her exactly what she did wrong and how to correct it. Natasha is a patient teacher, which she needs to be, because Darcy is not the most coordinated of students. She’s got the running part down just fine, but she struggles with anything more complicated than that. 

A week into her lessons, she does manage to knock Natasha off balance—okay, it’s more of a tiny wobble than anything, but Darcy does manage to break Natasha’s hold, and she even runs a few steps before she’s suddenly swept off her feet and lands on her face. 

“Jesus, Nat, what was that?” Darcy shouts. She means to shout, anyway, but it comes out as more of a pained wheeze.

“If your attacker doesn’t go down, they aren’t going to give you time to run away.” Darcy can just picture her looking smug. 

“We haven’t covered that lesson yet,” she mutters when she’s able to breathe, and she rolls onto her back. Natasha extends a hand to help her up. Darcy takes it. Big mistake, because as soon as she’s pulled to her feet, she finds herself flying through the air and landing on her back. The landing is surprisingly gentle, but the surprise knocks the wind out of her. “Shit,” she gasps.

“Those who help you up might not always be your friends,” Natasha says sagely.

“My friends might not even be my friends at this point,” she mutters. Before she has time to expound upon that, she hears someone stomping angrily into the gym. 

“What the hell was that, Romanov?” Darcy lolls her head to the side and sees Steve hurrying towards them, and that is definitely his angry face. His angry face is scary as hell. Natasha, however, does not look fazed. She merely crosses her arms as Steve approaches them. He flicks Natasha a glare, but he kneels beside Darcy, stroking her hair. For a second, for just one glorious second, she lets herself sink into his touch.

“Are you okay?” he demands harshly, bringing her crashing back down. She bats his hands away and scrambles to her feet.

“I’m fine.”

“What the hell were you thinking? We’re supposed to protect her, not beat the crap out of her!” Trust Captain America to never lose sight of the mission. Darcy gingerly lowers herself onto a stack of gym mats, watching as he looms over Natasha. “Answer me, Agent. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Give it a rest, Captain,” Darcy says wearily. “I asked her to teach me how to defend myself, so she’s teaching me how to defend myself.”

Steve snorts. “She’s beating the snot outta you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She shoots him a withering glare. “I’m still learning.”

“Yeah, well you stop learning right now.” It’s such an imperious command, that she wants to punch him in the face. She hasn’t learned offensive stuff, though, so she’d probably just break her hand. Actually, she’d probably just break her hand anyway. She gets to her feet and crosses her arms angrily. 

“You don’t get a say in this.”

“The hell I don’t.” His eyes flash as he turns away from Natasha and tries his best intimidating tactics on her. She doesn’t budge.

“I need to learn how to defend myself. I’m going to do it.”

They stare at each other for the space of a moment, the tension rapidly ratcheting up in the silence. “Fine,” he bites out. “You’ll work with me.”

“Hell no.”

He leans down so he’s nose to nose with her, and she shoves aside the memory of when he’d do this playfully, then lean in to kiss her. That’s not what this is now. He’s angry, his eyes flashing with heat and concern and other things that tell her that maybe Bruce was right when he said that Steve cared. Cares. She pushes that thought away, too, because she doesn’t want it. Not yet, maybe not ever.

“Yes,” he insists. “She’s hurting you.”

“She’s not. And you don’t get a say in what I do with my life.” Darcy pushes past him and stands in front of Natasha. “Try that again,” she says, determined to ignore him, to show him that he doesn’t affect her. It doesn’t matter that she knows exactly when he stalks out of the room. All that matters is that he doesn’t know it.

As soon as Steve storms out, Natasha opens her mouth to speak.

“We’re not talking about this,” Darcy snaps. So they don’t. But for the rest of the week, Steve shows up at Darcy’s subsequent workouts. Darcy grits her teeth and tries to ignore him, but it’s hard when she sees his scowling face every time she ends up on her back. Yeah, she’s not really seeing that “You weren’t a mission to him” thing that Bruce was talking about. The more he looks at her with that face, the more she’s convinced that Bruce was mistaken, and the more she thinks about that, the angrier she gets. She thought that anger would help her focus, do better, like it does in some of the movies. It doesn’t. It makes her sloppy, her movements predictable, and more often than not, her ass bounces hard on the gym mat. 

Darcy huffs out a frustrated breath as she stares at the gym ceiling. Has that overhead light always swayed? she wonders. No, she decides after a moment. That’s just her vision. She covers her eyes with her forearm.  “Maybe you should just kill me. You must know, like, five million different ways to kill somebody. Some of them might even be painless.” She pauses, uncovers her eyes to peek at Natasha. “ _Do_ you know any painless ways to dispatch a soul from the mortal realm?”

“Only six,” Natasha says with a straight face. Darcy lets out a sound halfway between a snort and a laugh. Even if Natasha isn’t joking, it’s kind of nice to have a contingency plan.

“Stop it,” Steve says sharply and Darcy laughs bitterly.

Darcy doesn’t look at him. “Just trying to be realistic, Captain.”

“Are you ever going to call me by name again?”

“I thought I was.” She feels bitchy and small for saying it, which makes her even angrier so she’s not taking it back. She watches as he balls his hands into fists and walks out of the gym. Just like with everything else, she’s all mixed up about how that makes her feel.

All through the remainder of the lesson, Natasha studies her speculatively, and Darcy just knows that another conversation about Steve is on her horizon. Darcy towels off the sweat—because, hey, she’s actually breaking a sweat, which is a plus—and sighs. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

Natasha regards her coolly. “You’re angry with him.”

Understatement. “He lied to me.”

“To protect you,” Natasha says, like she’s stating a fact. There’s no judgement one way or the other in her tone.

“To use me,” Darcy snaps. “I don’t know if he’d care about protecting me one way or the other if I wasn’t useful to him.”

“Stop that,” Natasha snarls, and Darcy actually recoils. “Whatever your anger, you _know_ him. He is a good man. Whatever you believe him capable of, do not think that he is heartless. You know better than that.”

“I should have known you’d be on his side.” Darcy feels tears welling up, and she doesn’t even know why. It pisses her off, and she doesn’t look at Natasha. That’s probably a weakness, but no more a weakness than the tears she knows are coming.

“There are no sides here, _malyshka_.”

“I have a right to be angry.” In the weeks since everything changed, since she found out who Steve really was, her heart hasn’t gotten any closer to mending. It hasn’t reconciled what her brain understands as logic and truth to the pain and anger in her heart. If anything, Bruce’s words and Steve’s actions have just muddled things even further and now she doesn’t understand what to think. So she holds on to anger. Anger, she understands. “I have every right to be angry,” she repeats fiercely.

“You could also say that I am here to use you,” Natasha says, her tone slipping back into pragmatic, factual, as if she hadn’t just been thinking about tearing Darcy’s head off. “Are you not angry with me?”

“I’m angry at everybody. But at least I know your angle. I know who you are, I know who you work for, and I know that anything I tell you is fair game for the SHIELD hive mind, or whatever it is. The things I told Steve—Captain Rogers…those things…they belonged to me. To us.” And there go the tears again. Darcy digs her nails into her palm to hold them back. “Besides,you didn’t insinuate yourself into my life for the sole purpose of getting the info you needed.”

“But I would have. Make no mistake, Darcy. And if I’d needed to sleep with you to get my answers, I would have done that, too.” A cold reminder of what this woman is, even if she’s the closest thing to a friend Darcy has, aside from Bruce.

“But you didn’t.” And that's really all that matters to Darcy right now.

Natasha says no more that day, and Darcy returns to her room out of sorts, brain whirring. She wants to talk with Bruce, because maybe he can help her clarify things. Of course, it’s his fault to begin with that her anger isn’t so righteous anymore, that it’s turned into something scared and reactionary. So she stays in her room and watches stupid action movies that don’t require her to think.

She should have known better than to believe that Natasha would drop the subject. During their next lesson, it’s just Natasha and Darcy. She’s not disappointed that Steve isn’t there. She’s really not.

Natasha is making Darcy practice breaking out of a hold when out of the blue she asks, “What makes you think Steve does not care about you?”

Natasha’s got her arms locked around Darcy from behind. Darcy’s arms are trapped and she can’t move them. The question makes her stop struggling. “Okay, why are we even talking about this?”

She feels Natasha shrug behind her. “I am told this is a thing that friends do. Do you honestly think Bruce hasn’t had a conversation or five with Steve about _you_?”

“Oh God,” Darcy groans, going still, “tell me he hasn’t.”

Another slight movement of the shoulders. “I try not to lie to those I consider friends.” Natasha pauses, as if considering her statement. “When I can help it.” Darcy tries to wrap her mind around the idea of Bruce having a talk with Steve about _her,_ and she feels her cheeks turning pink.

“We’re not talking about this,” Darcy mutters, trying and failing the move that Natasha has just gone over three times. “It’s none of your business. Thanks for staying out of it.”

“Bruce is looking after your heart.”

“Whose heart are you looking out for?” Darcy grumbles.

“Both of yours.”

Darcy doesn’t answer. She bites her lip and struggles harder against Natasha. “Ugh, why isn’t this working?”

Natasha pauses to correct Darcy’s technique and explain what she’s doing wrong, and Darcy thinks that that’s the end of the conversation about Steve. It isn’t, of course. At the end of the lesson, when Darcy’s leaving, Natasha asks again.

“What makes you think that Steve doesn’t care about you?”

“I asked him, okay?” 

“And what did he say?”

Darcy takes a deep breath, steels her heart against the pain the memory still evokes. “He didn’t say anything. Message received loud and clear, conversation over.” She turns to walk away. Natasha’s voice stops her.

“If he had said yes, would you have believed him?”

Darcy doesn’t look back as she hurries back to her room. The question follows her all day. She seeks out Bruce for advice, then remembers that he’s talked to Steve about her. On the one hand, she’s got the warm and fuzzies because it’s been a long time since someone’s had a talking to with a guy on her behalf. On the other hand, she doesn’t want anyone interfering with this whole thing.

Would she have believed him, Darcy asks herself for the hundredth time that day, if he had said yes?

Yes. No. She doesn’t know. Well, she does. She hates this whole “being honest with yourself” thing.

“If I admit that the point you made yesterday is fair and valid,” Darcy says to Natasha when she walks into the gym the next morning, “are you going to tell me I told you so?”

Natasha glances at her, expressionless. “Russians do not gloat.”

“Fine,” Darcy says with a sigh. She plops down gracelessly on one of the gym mats and pulls a face. “That point is fair and valid.”

“I told you so.” 

When Darcy glares at her, Natasha is smiling. “You said you wouldn’t gloat.”

Natasha arches a perfectly groomed brow. “I told you Russians do not. I am no longer Russian.”

Darcy throws her water bottle at her. It sails way wide. Natasha catches it anyway. “Sometimes I hate you.”

“After today, you’re going to hate me more.” She really wishes that Natasha wouldn’t look quite so delighted by that fact. And Natasha isn’t kidding. Today’s lesson is all about pain. Darcy, apparently, is great at receiving it. Not so great at avoiding it. And while most lessons end with Darcy flat on her back, this one hurts more than most and she’s glad to see it end.

“So what are you going to do about Steve?” Natasha asks, pinning Darcy to the ground. When she’d first met Natasha, she’d gotten the impression of aloof, serious, and emotionless. Not a gossip who’d butt into Darcy’s business. Yet here they are, Nat dangerously close to crushing her trachea, and she’s asking about Steve. Again. So much for stoic spy.

“Can’t. Breathe,” Darcy gasps.

“You’ll breathe when you break free. Now about Steve.” Darcy stares at her incredulously. Does Natasha honestly expect her to answer now? By the way she’s staring at her expectantly, apparently she does.

She wants to ask how the hell she can answer when she can’t get air into her lungs, but what comes out is: “No. Air. No. Talk.”

Natasha eases up on the pressure the tiniest bit, and at least Darcy has air in her lungs. It takes twenty minutes, but she finally manages to maneuver her way out from under Natasha. “Passable for the first time,” Natasha says with a firm nod. “Again.”

“No!” Darcy shouts as she rubs at her throat.

“You could answer my question.” It’s said so innocently that Darcy’s almost fooled. She slips off a sneaker and tosses it at Natasha. Of course it misses.

“There’s nothing _to do_ about Steve, okay? All he’s done is stammer guiltily or glare at me. He hasn’t shown any interest in anything else.” If she was going to be fair, she’d admit to herself that she hasn’t exactly given Steve a chance to do anything else. But there are other ways to reach out, and he hasn’t. What’s she supposed to think?

“And if he were to…show interest, would you be amenable to it?”

She doesn’t answer. “Maybe we should go back to you beating the crap out of me,” Darcy says sweetly.

“I just have one more question, _malyshka_. Do you still care about him?”

Darcy lets out a bitter laugh and turns away. “You think it would still hurt this much if I didn’t? I’m done talking about this, Natasha.”

“Darcy—“

“No. I’m done.” She walks out of the gym without finishing her lesson.

It really shouldn’t surprise her when she receives a vase of fat, happy sunflowers the next afternoon. There’s no card, but she knows who they’re from. She remembers once she’d told Steve that they were her favorite.

“That fink,” Darcy growls, thinking of Natasha. She looks back down at the flowers. She’s not sure whether to throw them on the ground and stomp on them or hug them to her chest. In the end, she does neither. She tucks them away in the corner of the kitchen where she can ignore them. Or glance at them whenever she wants. She knows sometime soon she’s going to have to make a decision.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look! It's an update. Thanks to everyone who's left comments and kudos on this fic. It's meant a lot to me. And thanks so much to the ladies who've refused to let me let this fic die (especially Trish and Britt), and thanks so much to thewriterchick for the beta read! Any remaining mistakes are my bad.
> 
> And thank you, for anyone who's still reading this! I can't make any promises about updates in the future (because you know as soon as I do, real life is going to fall on its ass laughing and say "no!") but I feel good about this fic again so hopefully that'll see me through the end.

It would be so much easier to ignore the gifts and notes if they’d come in an unrelenting onslaught. That way, she could tell herself that Steve doesn’t see her as a person but as a prize to be won and it would make everything so much simpler. As it is, he doesn’t flood her with  _things_ ; over the next two weeks, every few days she sees a box at her door with a note and a gift. And not just a gift--the  _right_  gift, the kind that tells her that he remembers all the things that were— _are—_ between them. A first edition of  _The Little Prince_ ; a box set of Gregory Peck films; a bracelet of blue crystals that match her necklace almost perfectly; a book of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry. She hadn’t even realized he’d remember the bits of poetry she’d spout off during their walks in the park. 

“Enough,” she sighs, running her fingers over the book’s spine, “we’re tired, my heart and I.” She wearily puts the book with the rest of his gifts, in a box in the back of the closet. These gifts of his, they speak to her heart, they tell the story of a man who knows her, but in the end, that was never in question. No, the real issue is whether she really knows him, whether she wants to find out what was and  _is_  in his heart.

Darcy needs to get out of her apartment—and after two months, it actually does feel like  _hers_ —but she doesn’t know where to go. The daily 'Let’s Turn Darcy’s Life Over Second by Excruciating Second' session are over by this point and they’re still no closer to figuring out who wants her and why. Natasha’s been called away for something SHIELD-y, so there’s no training session for distraction. Darcy could go talk to Bruce, but ever since their conversation about Steve, she feels a bit unsettled around him. He doesn’t mention Steve at all--really, when Darcy’s around him, she feels  _guilty_ about Steve. Which is ridiculous, because she’s not the one who did anything wrong, dammit. It’s the same situation with Natasha, who’s helping her get her badass on, but clearly has an opinion about Darcy’s situation with Steve. They don’t push or prod or pressure, but their expectations leave her uncomfortable in her own skin and it pulls at fragile seams of her friendships. It’s another thing she lays at Steve’s door, however irrationally. 

In the end, she decides to head to the rooftop garden. She’s only ever gone up there with Bruce, but she’s never seen anyone else up there before. At least up there she’ll have the sunshine and space to think. 

Only, when she gets up there, it's already occupied. There’s Tony Stark, sitting at the little table where Darcy usually has tea with Bruce. He’s got a stack of files in front of him and his brow is furrowed as he studies the list in his hand. Funny, she never would have thought that Stark did his own paperwork. He looks so engrossed that Darcy’s sure she can just sneak out before he even notices her. She turns back towards the door, but freezes when she hears, “Ah, you must be Miss Lewis.” 

Darcy pastes a smile to her face and turns to see him standing beside the table now, smirking at her. “Mr. Stark.”

“So you’re the one who broke Cap’s heart,” he says, and Darcy groans. She doesn’t want to talk about this; she doesn’t want to talk about Steve. She certainly doesn’t want to sit through another discussion of why she should consider forgiving Steve already. 

“Something like that,” she says dryly. She’s proud of herself that she didn’t throw his files at his head. It was tempting. Still is, actually. “Thanks for the place to stay. I’ll leave you to your work.” She turns to hurry away—in as mature fashion as possible—but Stark’s voice calls her back.

“You ever heard of the Get Back Home Foundation?” 

Her shoulders droop as she thinks of her former workplace. It feels like another life. Maybe it was. Is. She doesn’t know anymore. “I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that already.”

“Guilty.” He doesn’t look sorry; she doesn’t expect him to.

“So why bother with the games?” She’s had it up to here with superheroes and their games, and she wants no part of them anymore.

He picks up a folder, brandishing it at her like it’s supposed to mean something. “They applied for a grant from the Stark Charitable Foundation. Want me to turn ‘em down?” 

Her brain stops for a second, trying to comprehend what he’s saying and why he’s saying it. “What for? Petty revenge?”

Stark shrugs. “In my experience, it’s the most satisfying kind. What they did to you…I don’t agree with it.”

“Yeah, well I do.” Well, now that she’s had a couple of months to think about their decision, she understands it. Hell, she even applauds it. Sort of. And anyway, she believes so strongly in what the foundation does, she can’t help adding, “Their project is really worthwhile. This algorithm they’re developing to isolate missing persons cases in the days surrounding a disaster could change the game, and their CEO is totally lawful good, so he’s not going to abuse it. Considering how much damage the Avengers do while they’re avenging, it wouldn’t hurt to at least see where something like this could go.”

Stark stares at her, with what she hopes is consideration. “I’ll give it some thought. So what do you know about Second Chance Inc.?”

Darcy pulls a face. When she first came to the city, she’d interviewed there for a job, and after it was over she’d felt the need to douse herself in sanitizer. They all oozed that much disgusting. “Ugh, do  _not_ give them your money. They claim to be an employment resource for former inmates, but forty percent of their donations go to the CEO and his family, while the only former inmates they help are the former business people who got caught doing unethical things and who were stupid enough to get caught. It’s basically a pipeline for white collar criminals to go commit more white collar crimes.”

Stark whistles. “Alright then, crossing them off the list. I—you know, you should sit. This is gonna take a while.” 

“What exactly is  _this?_ ” Darcy asks, though she sits down at the small table anyway. Stark takes a seat across from her.

“Pepper thinks I’ve been getting bored, and for some reason or other, she thinks letting me decide who we give money to will keep me out of her hair.”

Despite herself, Darcy grins at the disgust in his voice, whether it’s for his task or for his compliance, she isn’t sure. “Is it working?”

“Yes. Do you  _know_  how many people apply to the Stark Charitable Foundation for money? I didn’t,” he exclaims, and Darcy laughs. “Turns out I can’t just ask JARVIS which ones are legit.”

Darcy shrugs and picks up a folder, flipping through it. “Greed is tricky that way. These the ones that weren’t obvious scams?” She gestures to the folder in her hands.  

Stark nods, and Darcy warms up to the task. This is a world she’s gotten to know, a world she understands, and it’s good to put the knowledge to use somehow. They go through the pile, and Darcy separates the files into four piles: the legitimate organizations with projects worth cultivating, legitimate organizations whose proposed projects need more thought, organizations that need to be researched further, and the organizations that have a reputation for misappropriating funds or misrepresenting themselves in the non-profit sector. Darcy finds that the time passes quickly, and that Stark is actually interested in what she has to say and puts stock into the advice she gives. It’s a pretty awesome feeling, and she holds on to that, considering there haven’t been too many things to feel awesome about as of late. 

Once upon a time, Darcy went to a grant application training session at her old job; she’d been fascinated by it and remembered far more than she expected to. She explains some of that stuff to Tony now, asks him about the Stark Charitable Foundation’s specific selection criteria for funding projects. She’s in the middle of flipping through the binder of rules Tony gave her when she realizes that he’s staring at her.

“You actually know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

“Not completely,” she admits. “A lot of this is stuff I picked up from around the office. But it’s interesting.”

“You know more than I do,” he says cheerfully. A light flashes in his eyes, and while she can’t say she knows Tony Stark particularly well, even she knows that look can’t mean anything good. “New plan! You do this.”

She blinks at him as he jumps to his feet. “What?”

“It’s brilliant. You. Charity coordinator stuff. Thing. Whatever the title is. It’s yours.”

Darcy recoils in shock. He’s nuts. That’s the only way to explain the fact that he just offered to put her in charge of making decisions for the Stark Charitable Foundation. Either that, or this entire situation has caused her mind to snap and break with reality. Maybe this is all a huge, drawn-out hallucination. Maybe these past few months have been a hallucination. That makes more sense than anything else. Surreptitiously, she pinches herself, her nails biting into her flesh until she winces. Maybe not a dream.

Stark’s eyes are bright with excitement, while it’s all she can do not to faint. She stares up at him warily. “Okay, maybe you’ve gotten a little too much sun.”

“No, no. I like it.” He bends down to pick up another binder and hands her a keycard. “Here you go. Head of the Stark Charitable Foundation. That’s you. Office is on the fortieth floor—”

Darcy shakes her head frantically. “Excuse you, I’m not exactly qualified—“

Stark beams at her. “You know the non-profits and other organizations in this town, or you have the skills to learn about them, and you  _like_ it.”

She stares at him like he’s crazy. Because he is crazy. Absolutely certifiable, really, because even rich dude eccentricity is not a good excuse for even thinking of this hare-brained idea. “That’s not a reason to just hand a person a job, Mr. Stark.”

He goes on like she hadn’t spoken at all. “You can plan some charity events, too, do some schmoozing—“

“I’m terrible at schmoozing,”

He waves that off dismissively. “You’re a political science major. All politicians are good at schmoozing.”

She doesn’t bother explaining that political science isn’t studying to be a politician and decides to take a different tack instead. “I don’t work for free, you know.” Never mind that she’s staying in an awesome apartment, free of charge. She’s there under duress mostly, so it doesn’t even count. Of course, she can’t imagine why a thing like  _money_ would deter Stark from doing exactly what he wants in the way he wants to do it. Even if she demanded a seven figure salary, it probably wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket of his quarterly profits.

“Then we’ll pay you!” Stark says cheerfully. “Get to work.” Just like that, like the conversation is over, and he turns to go.

“Wait!” she calls after him. “What if I suck at it??”

Stark shrugs. “I fire you. If your skills are good enough, we’ll try to find a different position for you. And if you like the job, I can make sure you’ll never see red-white-and-blew-it again.”

She gapes at him in horror. “Oh my God, I don’t want him  _dead_!”

He chokes on a laugh at her reaction. “I’d been thinking along the lines of banning him from the building. But how about a maiming? No? Shame.”

Stark turns to go, but panic is clawing at Darcy’s insides, even as elation buoys up inside of her. “You’ll probably regret this,” she calls after him.

Stark shrugs. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Besides, Cap says you’re good people.”

A thought strikes her, making her want to take this opportunity and toss it over the side of the tower. “Did he put you up to this?”

Another careless lift of the shoulders as he turns. “He might have mentioned your name in conjunction with stuff like this. But do you really think I would have offered if I didn’t think you could handle it?”

“I don’t know,” she says, her mind reeling from the last few minutes. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me.”

“I know enough.”

Once again he turns to go, and it occurs to her that he’s been the only one who hasn’t tried to convince her to give Steve a second chance. Not that she wants him to. In fact, she’s glad he hasn’t asked, hasn’t stuck his nose where it decidedly does not belong.

“Aren’t you going to give me some sage advice about forgiving Steve? You’re not going to talk about how he’s just such a swell guy?”

Darcy winces. Not the question she’d intended to ask. She’s surprised when Tony answers her at all.

He stuffs his hands in his pockets, rocks back on his heels. “Don’t tell him I said this, but he  _is_  a swell guy under all that…America. But what he did to you sucked. So no.”

Darcy blinks up at him. “What?”

“When someone does something to hurt you, you don’t have to forgive them for it. If you don’t want to, don’t.” A self-deprecating laugh, but he doesn’t look down, doesn’t look away. Instead, he looks her in the eye, a man comfortable—or at least coming to terms with—the mistakes he’s made. In that moment, she admires him. “Believe me, I’ve been on the other side of that enough times to figure it out. We—the hurters—can say sorry, and that’s fine. We usually are. But some things are too hard to get past. Some hurts are too big. And it’s okay. It’s okay not to forgive him.” 

—

_It’s okay not to forgive him_. The thought releases the constriction on her heart, making it easier to breathe, to think. The files Stark gave her lie untouched on the table as she repeats the words in her mind, again and again and again. She’s not entirely certain how long she’s sat here, repeating her new mantra, but when she opens her eyes, she sees Steve standing in the doorway, staring at her cautiously. “It’s okay not to forgive you,” she whispers. He flinches, but nods.

“I know.” There’s pain in the words, and even when he’s ravaged her heart, hearing it only exacerbates her own hurt. He takes a cautious step forward, their first conversation in weeks. “Can we..can we just talk?”

For the first time she doesn’t feel like lashing out at him, doesn’t feel like making him bleed the way he did with her. Maybe it’s Stark’s words, grounding her. Or maybe she’s just tired. Of all of this. So tired. Releasing a heavy breath, she nods. She waits until he sits down across from her. There’s no point in easing into it. No matter what, it’s gonna hurt. “Was any of it real?”

“Yes.” It comes out hard, clipped, with no hesitation. It doesn’t excuse anything, it doesn’t make any of it better, but something in the vicinity of her heart eases, hurts fractionally less than it had the moment before. “I was just supposed to watch you. Be your friend. I wasn’t ready for how you make me feel.”

“And how’s that?” she asks wearily.

“Alive. That first day, when I saw you save that kid—I knew you’d be important.”

She chokes back a bitter laugh. That’s another thing she’s tired of—feeling bitter and brittle and broken, but she can’t stop herself from saying, “Apparently everyone thinks I’m important. It’s almost enough to turn a girl’s head—”

“To me,” he says fiercely, eyes snapping up to meet hers. “I knew you’d be important to _me_.”

“And do you lie to everyone who’s important to you or am I just the lucky one?”

“You can’t know how sorry I am about that. How sorry I am that I hurt you.” Closing her eyes, she sucks in a breath because she believes him, believes that he’s sorry, believe that he regrets breaking her heart. She feels the sting of incipient tears. _Not now_ , she thinks, fighting them back. _Please not now._

He doesn’t make excuses, doesn’t spout off all the logical and reasonable excuses he’s got for insinuating himself into her life. Her heart appreciates it even as it he rips it apart all over again. By the sincerity in his voice, the regret in his eyes. They could have been something special. They _had_ been something special. When he takes a ragged breath, she looks up at him. “You should know I volunteered. For the…the assignment.”

“Why?” because she needs to know. She needs to know it all.

“I wanted to be near you. I wanted to know you. Even after everything, you were bright and warm and funny and being with you…it made me happy.”

_You don’t do that to someone who makes you happy_ , she wants to shout. Objectively she understands why he did what he did, but logic…it has no bearing on the way her heart aches. Her lips remained closed, holding in the words that are sure to start a different kind of conversation, one she knows she can’t handle.

“You made me happy, too,” she says, because she needs him to know that, needs him to know what he had, what he lost. What they lost.

“I fell in love with you,” he says quietly.

Because he gave her honesty, because she _believes_ him, she knows she owes him the same. “I fell in love with you, too.” She still loves him, she admits in one of those moments of self-honesty that are coming more frequently than she wants. “And I know, I get why you did the things that you did.”

His hands clench tightly together, and she wonders if it’s to keep himself from reaching out to touch her. “Can you forgive me?”

Her eyes are dry when she looks up, looks him in the eye to give him her answer. “No.”


End file.
